JMU LAXC 252 Honors | Digital Exhibit: Mapping Latin America in Virginia

Atlantic Archives Global Education centers visual culture, community archives, and artistic practice as primary methodologies for studying the Americas. In Fall 2025, honors students at James Madison University applied this pedagogy through a collaborative digital mapping project connecting Latin American and Latinx communities in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to broader hemispheric patterns of migration, resistance, and cultural memory.

Using StoryMapJS and Omeka platforms, students curated public-facing digital exhibits that treat art and local archives as essential historical evidence. This project demonstrates how Atlantic Archives methodology transforms introductory Latin American Studies courses from passive content consumption to active knowledge production, positioning undergraduate students as digital humanities practitioners creating scholarship for public audiences.

Methodology: Place-based digital mapping, visual culture analysis, community-engaged research
Tools: StoryMapJS, Omeka, digital archival platforms
Outcome: Public-facing digital exhibition connecting local Virginia communities to transnational Latin American and Latinx histories

This cohort represents the inaugural implementation of Atlantic Archives Global Education in a U.S. university honors curriculum, establishing a replicable model for decolonial digital humanities pedagogy in Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies.