| Chapter 1: | New Mexico's Genesis as Symbolic Landscape |
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Chapter 1
New Mexico’s Genesis
as Symbolic Landscape
New Mexico is often described as a place where one is deeply influenced by the natural landscape. In New Mexico, many are inspired to look beyond themselves and to project meaning onto or receive meaning from their natural surroundings. In doing so, many people find a reciprocal relationship with the land as they allow it to influence their epistemologies and ontologies. Because of this potential relationship with the land, people may attach more significance to the experience of place in New Mexico than they might to the experience in other parts of the United States. It is important to note that Euro-American and European relationships with the land differ from natives' relationships with the land. Whereas Euro-Americans and Europeans often see New Mexico through an outsider or tourist lens, natives often see the same place as it relates to local histories and personal stories. A place can have meaning and be known only by the claims to knowledge that people hold. Jeffrey Nealon and Susan Searls Giroux explain Ferdinand de Saussure's