Retrieving landscape

Abstract

This article focuses on two methods employed in the selection, interpretation, and representation of diverse source materials for developing alternative biographies for my ancestral landscape - Nanhai district in the Pearl River Delta in southern China. These biographies aim to approach Nanhai from a long view of continual transformation, as opposed to prevalent readings of the region that focus on the striking spatial contrasts and large-scale developments that have only come about in recent decades.  The chronological reading explores a critical shift in the cosmological understanding of the landscape situated in the 19th century through a selection of historical gazetteer maps, while in the excavational reading the diffuse continuity of the lineage in the present-day landscape of Nanhai is traced. In both methods, the drawing functions as a crucial (research) tool to engage the range of source materials.