The Möbius Strip: A Spatial History of Colonial Society in Guerrero, Mexico (review)

This is a large book that takes on a large issue—the relationships between spatial structures and spatial practices in colonial New Spain. The author is quick to explain that his study is not a regional analysis but a spatial study, arguing that the "region" as a concept had little relevance for the inhabitants of the area that he chose to study, now called Guerrero, but without any more generalizable name during the colonial period.

The study is divided into three main sections: "Terrain and Territoriality," The Dynamics of Economic Transformation," and "Absolute Property and Spatial Politics." These are subdivided into eleven chapters that focus on three critical aspect of the colonial world: land tenure, migration, and commercial exchange. A useful glossary is followed by an extended bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Indeed a mere glance at the archival holdings examined and the number of detailed footnotes that invade almost every page of the text, as well as subtle hints as to the author's field experience in the area that he is dealing with, indicate that this is product of more than a decade of intensive investigation. But with such density of evidence come problems of clarity. The author is repeatedly required to tell the reader what to conclude at the end of each chapter—let alone section—as well as to forewarn us of what is to come. Moreover, Amith is unable in the footnotes to resist digressions into parallel situations, alternative disciplinary perspectives, contrary cultural contexts, and so forth.

One of the most ironic elements of the study is that though we are told that for the colonialists and the colonized no regional terms had any meaning, the book's title, and throughout the text, uses a post-colonial nineteenth-century jurisdictional term ("Guerrero") to define the area to be analyzed. Exactly why this unit was chosen is never explained, nor are some key terms that are repeatedly used such as, the Iguala Valley, Tierra caliente communities, the Province of Acapulco, and the Balsas River Basin. Are these colonialisms or merely modern shorthand terms? In the often artfully titled chapters many key questions remain understudied. One may note, as an example, the use of land rental values as a diagnostic for ecological variation, remembering the fact that the area is partially traversed by the Sierra Madre del Sur. Thus scale issues must be of significant concern but that word is not to be found in the excellent index. More importantly, we are presented with numerous genealogical charts yet in no case are they transposed into a form to show the spatial networks of influence, power and authority. The intricate details of the evolving haciendas, and settlements are not summarized in any cartographic form. Instead, one has to persistently refer back to two orientation maps—two of only four that the book contains—and even then in many cases the specific place names are difficult to locate. Nor are we provided with original colonial maps of landholdings, or interpretations of such sources. Boundary markers are mentioned and boundary issues are discussed at length but no spatial distributions of either are presented.

In his discussion of migration, Amith he stresses the significance of what are termed processes of "place-making and place-breaking," which he describes in a single case study of the village/hacienda of Palula. But one finds no mention there of numbers and origins, nor relevant parish records. What were the paths of migrants throughout the area studied? Only in his footnotes are lesser mortals, who have dealt with numbers, directions and patterns, brought forth. Mention is repeatedly made of "central Guerrero" and the northern and southern sections yet there are no maps providing spatial data to distinguish such meso/micro units. (Crude arrows on one of his figures are hardly significant additions to our knowledge of the...