Mark N.

Orzech
Dr. Jamie Johnson
ANTH 5031
9/12/2017
Participatory Mapping of Community Lands and Hunting Yields among the Bugl of Western Panama
(Abstract)
Source
Smith, Derek A. 2003. "Participatory Mapping of Community Lands and Hunting Yields among the
Bugle of Western Panama." Human Organization 62 (4): 332-343.
https://libproxy.library.unt.edu/login?url=https://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2165/docview/201161074?acco
untid=7113.
Key Words
participant research, mental mapping, land use, indigenous knowledge, ecology, Bugl
Methods
One outside investigator and several local investigators used educational workshops, community mapping
sessions, weekly questionnaires, and extensive formal and informal interviews to map hunting kill sites
and their spatial relation to indigenous communities. The intimate environmental knowledge gained from
indigenous mapping was put over topographical base maps and articulated through standardized
cartography methods to assess local resource management and identify conservation priorities.
Summary
The history of cartography in Central America is briefly discussed, with emphasis placed on the
exploitative intent behind most non-native colonial map-making and the contributions that indigenous
environmental knowledge could offer to both conservation/sustainability research and in supporting local
claims to land. The research was conducted over a period of 8 months from late 1999 to the summer of
2000 with the Bugl community of West Panama, who had noted game depletion around their
settlements. It aimed to document local resource consumption in a community of 59 households by
mapping the kill sites of native hunters and analyzing the results with reference to the local settlement
patterns, extraction methods used (bow, trap, etc.), and the age/gender of the hunter, among other
variables.
The participatory research involved extensive collaboration with indigenous leaders and communities.
Local investigators were trained in mapping and data-collection methods through four workshops and
taught to explain the goals of the research to their fellow villagers. Questionnaires were administered
weekly (over 1500 in all) by the local investigators, who also did extensive census work and community
mapping, documenting the mixed ethnic makeup of the local community and local hunting patterns. 1,270
game kill sites were mapped over the course of the research and the results, with the strong support of the
indigenous federation, were presented to the communities that participated.
Analysis
This paper shows the influence of multiple paradigmatic lenses in framing the authors research. The
project aimed to document indigenous Bugl villagers perceptions of the land and their relationship with
it through mental mapping, a primarily interpretive or phenomenological approach that seeks to chart the
meanings that people ascribe to their surroundings (LeCompte and Schensul 2010, 68). Participatory
research is critical in recording this subjective and contextually specific emic perspective, because it shifts
control over the research to native collaborators as much as possible. The author shows considerable
Mark N. Orzech
Dr. Jamie Johnson
ANTH 5031
9/12/2017
effort to include the local community in every stage of the process, from brainstorming and discussing
research methods and goals to presenting final results and their significance, break[ing] down the
researcher-researched or subject-object dichotomy of conventional research (Smith 2013).
While an interpretive/phenomenological understanding is a primary goal of the research, other paradigms
are employed as well. In the introduction to his research, Smith explains the importance of indigenous
cartography when compared to colonial mapping practices, which did not represent the native peoples
understandings of the land and focused instead on documenting resources and tribal boundaries for
exploitation. This attention to the non-native history of cartography in Central America makes effective
use of the critical paradigm by focusing on the egregious power inequalities inherent in colonialism and
how this has affected indigenous representation and notions of what constitutes cartographic legitimacy to
the modern day. Through this lens, native cartography empowers indigenous communities by representing
their contextual worldview vis--vis the environment and substantiating local territorial claims.
As a work of cultural ecology, the research explored in this paper deals with how specific communities
interact with the natural environment. The ecological paradigm is also used throughout this paper, and is
especially relevant to the subject of resource exploitation patterns and declining game populations. This
paradigm looks at the interaction between interconnected parts of a local system and the ways in which
changes in one part affect others. This is relevant to the conservation aims of the research, which must
track how changes in hunting technology affect animal populations and how local communities can adapt
traditional practices to accommodate their changing environment.

Follow-up or Discussion Questions

1. What are some ways that this knowledge could inform studies of conservation/sustainability
methods in indigenous communities? Could this change ways in which conservation units are
mapped?
2. How can the local community use the research results to prevent further game depopulation?
3. How can governments and corporations be compelled to take this and similar local research
into account when passing conservation legislation or planning land-use projects?
4. What are some ethical considerations to take into account when doing participant mapping
research?
Other References
Roth, Robin. 2009. "The Challenges of Mapping Complex Indigenous Spatiality: From Abstract Space to
Dwelling Space." Cultural Geographies 16 (2): 207-227.
Mclain, Rebecca, Melissa Poe, Kelly Biedenweg, Lee Cerveny, Diane Besser, and Dale Blahna. 2013.
"Making Sense of Human Ecology Mapping: An Overview of Approaches to Integrating Socio-Spatial
Data into Environmental Planning." Human Ecology 41 (5): 651-665.
Wainwright, Joel and Joe Bryan. 2009. "Cartography, Territory, Property: Postcolonial Reflections on
Indigenous Counter-Mapping in Nicaragua and Belize." Cultural Geographies 16 (2): 153-178.
Bryan, Joe. 2011. "Walking the Line: Participatory Mapping, Indigenous Rights, and
Neoliberalism." Geoforum 42 (1): 40-50.