CARTOGRAPHY AND POWER IN THE CONQUEST AND CREATION OF NEW SPAIN
With the so called linguistic turn, historians have begun to study the ways in which a multitude of cultural forms are imbricated in the colonial and imperial project. In analyzing the infinite ways in which power is exercised and manifested, historians are turning a critical eye toward a myriad of cultural pro ductions for a better understanding of how culture, politics, and power work in concert. One example is the increasing scrutiny given to geographical concep tions and representations. In Latin American colonial studies, a number of recent works have analyzed the ways in which deep, culturally rooted structures of spa tial perception and representation have influenced the colonial process. This essay attempts to bring a number of those works into meaningful dialogue with one another with respect to the cultural and political facets of cartography. It also introduces work by scholars studying other regions of the world that may push the field farther and the work of the "new cultural cartographers" who have prob lematized traditional notions about the mimetic quality of maps and their pre sumed objectivity. In sum, this essay surveys recent literature pertaining to colo nial cartography in Latin America, analyzes a number of comparative and theoretical studies that may broaden future research, and suggests that cartogra phy and maps offer a fruitful avenue for further study and analysis of colonial ism, imperialism, and state formation.