Heritage, Identity, and the Santa Cruz River, Tucson

Abstract

The research in this thesis explores the ways that individuals in Tucson conceptualize the past by administering a questionnaire survey. Human occupation of the Tucson Basin goes back at least 4,000 years, representing the first practice of agriculture north of Mexico, large-scale canal irrigation and architectural construction, Spanish mission and colonialism, Euro-American nationalization, and a space of movement and migration by multiple communities. Many of these social processes occurred alongside and in proximity to the Santa Cruz River. Tucson’s population is as rich and diverse today as it was in the past, however, the ways in which people engage with and conceptualize the Santa Cruz River has changed dramatically as the river no longer supports a perennial stream flow. In my research, I interrogate the processes by which communities in Tucson construct narratives about the past through the Santa Cruz River. The processes of heritage construction are highlighted using the medium of the river as a landscape experienced physically, and through social discourse.