Transcultural knowledge production in the southern Andes region. Spatiality, materiality and the construction of sacred topographies in the context of colonial rule. Sajama and Sabaya, 16th-19th centuries.

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The research project sees itself as a contribution to the history of transcultural knowledge. It scrutinizes the historical significance of local indigenous epistemologies and their trans-cultural interdependencies with hegemonic, i.e. Christian-European, knowledge orders. With reference to the two towns of Sajama and Sabaya in the highlands of present-day Bolivia, it analyses the dynamics of religious knowledge production in the context of Christianisation and colonial rule between the 16th and 19th centuries. The focus is on the production of new, transcultural forms of religious and cosmological knowledge. This is always spatially and geographically located in the entire Andes region and inseparably connected with the local construction of sacred spaces and topographies. The phenomenon is first met in general by the development of a theoretical model for the analysis of sacred spatiality. In the second step, this model serves as an instrument for the micro-historical investigation of the two case studies. They focus the meaningful interaction between the local actors, the surrounding sacralized topography and the artefacts and architectures (e.g. grave towers/chullpas, cult sites/wak'a, churches, chapels, etc.) that are part of the social and religious space. As "epistemic objects", they were involved in the production, preservation and (re-)configuration of religious and cosmological knowledge. The sources, which consist of written and non-written material traditions as well as ethnographic interviews, are recorded, related to each other and to the geographical space in which they were found or articulated (georeferencing) with the help of a geographical information system (GIS). Following the theoretical-methodical approach of deep mapping, non-explicitly geographical data such as iconographies, narratives, ritual practices, etc. are also mapped geo-historically. The aim of the project is to use such a spatial-relational model to counteract the linear narrative of knowledge history of traditional historiography and to be able to grasp the dynamics and complexity of transcultural knowledge production beyond the written tradition. As a result of this approach, a dynamic, web-based deep map of sacred spaces and religious knowledge about Sabaya and Sajama will be created and published. It is intended to visualize the transcultural dimensions of religious and cosmological knowledge production and circulation as well as the significance of local epistemologies and their interdependencies with hegemonic knowledge orders over longer periods. With this map, the project makes an innovative contribution to the Digital Humanities and facilitates the transfer of academic knowledge to the non-academic public, especially to those communities whose cultural heritage the study deals with.