About This Project

The goal of this project is to leverage indigenous knowledge with geographic information systems (GIS) and the immersive, mobile geolocation capabilities of the Native-developed Our Worlds platform to present a novel look at landscape change in San Diego over time.

This project complements work we are already doing to capture primary source narratives about the region by tribal elders in extended reality, connecting the past to the present in transformative new ways.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

San Diego County, CA is home to 18 Indian reservations, more than any other county in the United States. Ancestors of the Kumeyaay, Luiseño, and Cupeño have inhabited the region for over 10,000 years. Within this rich cultural ecosystem, the Our Worlds team is working with Native American leaders, elders, scientists, and educators to create immersive, place-based XR experiences using primary source narratives and cutting-edge technologies. Dr. Stanley Rodriguez, a Kumeyaay tribal elder, has developed a cultural initiative highlighting Kumeyaay waterway traditions by teaching the community to build ha kwaiyo, or traditional tule boats. The proposed project will add an immersive extended reality GIS component to his narratives about traditional land and water usage.

What is the significance of this project?

Ecological identity is ingrained in indigenous worldviews; place-based knowledge transfer reveals wide-reaching cultural knowledge systems spanning topics from ethnobotany, to engineering, to language and the arts. In this way, Dr. Rodriguez' ha kwaiyo project provides the community with hands-on education of the entire production cycle of these boats that touch upon many aspects of the San Diego landscape; from harvesting the tule reeds, to boat construction, and launching the boats for travel, fish, and surf. The proposed project harnesses a novel XR technology that "reveals" the indigenous landscapes hidden beneath present day landscapes in primary source narrative accounts of the region provided by Dr. Rodriguez.

What are the goals of the project?

The proposed research will initiate a wide-scale effort to source, vet, and create accurate images of pre-colonial landscapes to be used as texture maps in 3D models of San Diego terrain. The first goal is to develop an efficient, sustainable workflow for purveying these images; the second is to identify ways to efficiently integrate them into 3D overlays of San Diego landscapes in realtime. Working closely with Dr. Rodriguez to align GIS information with traditional narratives, the proposed project will result in a pilot prototype highlighting landscapes from the source of the San Diego River to its watershed in Mission Bay. A measure of success of the project will be whether attitudes about land use and conservation change before and after viewing the prototype experience.