Research Interests
My research interests lie in the broad intersection of the fields of population,
medical, and agricultural geography, and geographic cultural ecology - focused
on Latin America. I am particularly interested in the interaction of population,
environment, and resources, and primarily I do research concerning the health,
demography, and agriculture of pre-Columbian and contact era Amerindians in
Middle America. This research is a focused cultural ecology - narrowly directed
to the specific issue of population size and its relationships with its
supporting environment. In common with other cultural ecologists, I seek
explanation that accounts for the complex web of factors that interact in place
producing the dynamic of interest. Methodologically, I have interest and
experience in using systems dynamics (SD) modeling for cultural ecological
research.
Historical Cultural Ecology of Population Collapse: One of my research interests involves using SD computer simulation methods to re-examine the scale and other aspects of the Amerindian population losses that followed the Spanish conquest in early Colonial Mexico. I use a SD model that simulates the interactions of the population, the health environment, and food production systems to estimate the scale of population collapse and other issues.
Amerindian Agriculture: A parallel interest is my research on indigenous Amerindian agriculture and agricultural landscapes - again focusing on Middle America at the time of the European encounter. A colleague (B.L. Turner II, Department of Geography, Clark University) and I have just completed a book for Oxford University Press (2001, Cultivated Landscapes of Native Middle America on the Eve of Conquest) describing the location, spatial extent, nature of environmental transformation, and agroecological functioning of the diverse types of indigenous agricultures in conquest-era Middle America.
Famine Vulnerability: A third interest (in conjunction with Barbara J. Williams) involves simulating the vulnerability to famine on a household scale in a group of conquest-era communities in Central Mexico. This simulation uses an analytical framework from contemporary vulnerability to famine studies, data extracted from early post-conquest pictorial (Náhuatl [Aztec] glyphs) cadastral and census documents, and a model of local agricultural productivity.
Migration in Latin America: A developing interest is in examining rural to frontier migration in Guatemala. My doctoral student, David Carr, Adjunct Professor Dick Bilsborrow, and I are in the early stages of developing a research project looking at the origin areas of migrants to Guatemala's Péten. Much is said about tropical deforestation, but little about its proximate cause - in-migration of colonists from other areas. Our goal is to understand why thousands leaving traditional home areas throughout Guatemala for the risks and uncertainty of homesteading in the unfamiliar lowland tropical forest. This understanding can lead to a greater understanding of some of the "ultimate" causes of tropical deforestation.
Selected Recent Publications
2001. Whitmore, Thomas M. & B. L. Turner II. Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the Eve of Conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1997. Whitmore, Thomas M. and B. J. Williams. "Famine Risk In The Contact-Era Basin of Mexico." Ancient Mesoamerica 8: 1-16.
1996. Whitmore, Thomas M."Population Geography of Calamity: the 16th and 17th Century Yucatán," International Journal of Population Geography 2: 291-311.
(Forthcoming) Whitmore, Thomas M. "Landscapes of Transformation: The Geography of Middle American Cultivation on the Eve of the Conquest" In Native American Cultural Ecologies: Past, Present, and Future. Alfred H. Siemens and Andrew Sluyter, eds. Austin: University of Texas Press.
1999. Whitmore, Thomas M. "El Holocausto amerindio reexaminado: Simulación del colapso poblacional debido epidémicas en el valle de México durante el siglo XVI," Proceedings of the Congreso Salud-Enfermedad en México de la Prehistoria al Siglo XX. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México City.
Teaching
I routinely teach sections of Geography 20 (World Regional Geography); Geography 59 (Latin America); an upper division Latin America class; and a graduate seminar in Cultural/Political Ecology. I have also taught the History of Geographic Thought Seminar (Geog 202) in the past. John Florin and I are creating a new course (under an old number, Geog 132) on the Geography of food. Practically every aspect of Geography comes into play when we explore how and where food is grown, issues of food security for poor people, how people value it; modern changes in world foods, etc. |
