AGS BOWMAN EXPEDITIONS CONCEPT AND PROGRAM

The First Bowman Expedition of the American Geographical Society (AGS) was developed in Mexico as a collaboration between the University of Kansas (KU) and the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (UASLP), with financial support from the U.S. Foreign Military Study Office (FMSO). To learn more about the AGS Bowman Expeditions concept, and details about the prototype expedition described in this México Indígena Website, see:

Herlihy, Peter H., Jerome E. Dobson, Miguel Aguilar Robledo, Derek A. Smith, John H. Kelly, and Aida Ramos Viera. 2008. “The AGS Bowman Expeditions Prototype: Digital Geographies of Indigenous Mexico,” Geographical Review 98 (3):395-415.

The AGS Bowman Expeditions Program is based on the belief that geographical understanding is essential for maintaining peace, resolving conflicts, and providing humanitarian assistance worldwide. Accordingly, the AGS sends a team of geographers to a selected foreign region, where, in order to increase U.S. and international understanding of that region, it gathers cultural and physical GIS data, conducts original research on a geographical topic chosen by the lead investigator, builds collaborative relationships with foreign scholars and institutions, and reports findings in scholarly journals, popular media, and on the internet.

The prototype project in Mexico is producing a multi-scale GIS database and digital regional geography, using participatory research mapping (PRM) and GIS, aiming at developing the a digital regional geography, or so-called “digital human terrain,” of indigenous peoples of the country. Other AGS Bowman Teams of university scholars and students are presently in the Antilles, Colombia, and Jordan.