Radical Cartographies: Participatory Mapmaking from Latin America

Published by University of Texas Press 2020

Radical Cartographies

Participatory Mapmaking from Latin America

Edited by: Bjørn Sletto , Joe Bryan , Alfredo Wagner and Charles Hale

https://doi.org/10.7560/320884

Overview
Contents

About this book

Cartography has a troubled history as a technology of power. The production and distribution of maps, often understood to be ideological representations that support the interests of their developers, have served as tools of colonization, imperialism, and global development, advancing Western notions of space and place at the expense of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities. But over the past two decades, these marginalized populations have increasingly turned to participatory mapping practices to develop new, innovative maps that reassert local concepts of place and space, thus harnessing the power of cartography in their struggles for justice.

In twelve essays written by community leaders, activists, and scholars, Radical Cartographies critically explores the ways in which participatory mapping is being used by Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other traditional groups in Latin America to preserve their territories and cultural identities. Through this pioneering volume, the authors fundamentally rethink the role of maps, with significant lessons for marginalized communities across the globe, and launch a unique dialogue about the radical edge of a new social cartography.

Author / Editor information

Bjørn Sletto is an associate professor of community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin. His work on participatory mapping has been published in Environment and Planning, Cuadernos de Geografía, and Current Anthropology, among other places.

Alfredo Wagner is a professor of graduate studies at the State University of Maranhão and founder of the New Social Cartography Project of the Amazon.

Joe Bryan is an associate professor in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and coauthor of Weaponizing Maps: Indigenous Peoples and Counterinsurgency in the Americas.

Charles Hale is the dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Más que un Indio: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala.

Reviews

[Radical Cartographies] succeeds magnificently...The stories are direct, clear, and well-translated, unfloriated by intellectual language...Community participatory mapping in the global South was first brought to wider academic attention in the 1990s. The 'decolonialised cartographies' in this book develop the vision: they demonstrate the authenticity of local authorship, the cultural authority, and the political framing. They deserve an attentive audience.

— Society & Natural Resources

This book’s work is a model of how community-based mobilizations can be connected with university spheres and how they can work together to lead necessary research that creates both scholarly and social, political, ethically-engaged contributions to complex issues on the ground...Those who guide each mapping project and share their rich and original insights with us are often under very direct threat. Their risks they face emphasize that consent and control over the research process and outcomes are crucial at every step. This book is a resounding affirmation of those principles and a real beacon for radical participatory mapmaking projects for social justice throughout the world.

— Antipode

[Radical Cartographies] contains seminal research on how native and Afro-descendant peoples view and understand their geographic condition in several Latin American countries, a topic that remains underresearched in this region. Accordingly, this volume aims to fill this lacuna by providing critical analysis of how locals view their geographies. For the uninitiated, each of the 11 chapters provides unique perspectives of marginalized peoples' conceptual understanding of space. Complemented by several mostly black-and-white photos and maps, as well as a rich bibliography, this publication is a must read.

— CHOICE

Several of the volume’s authors are from the communities they write about while others are engaged intellectuals who have worked with the communities for years or decades...[Radical Cartographies] contains abundant samples of maps and photographs from each community mapping project…radical cartography repudiates the authoritarian practice since the colonial period of 'disappearing' indigenous and Black communities from maps.

— Journal of Latin American Geography

The case studies [included in Radical Cartographies] showcase a rich variety of Indigenous and Afro-descendant practices that link together cartography and oral traditions and histories via the complex meanings embedded in landscape...each case study becomes a statement of sovereignty for each polity or community represented as they both document that territory in maps and use the maps to negotiate a relationship with the state that is founded in dispossession.

— Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

This is a creative and generative collection that invites the reader in to an array of mapping methods, strategies, tactics, and theories. It is also at once a work of intellectual decolonization and a reworking of what counts as theory, as knowledge, and as method. In an era characterized by new (and not-so-new) forms of accumulation and dispossession, this is essential reading for academics, activists, and social theorists writ large.

— Raymond B. Craib, Cornell University

This book offers valuable insight into the ways that Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples are mapping differently throughout Latin America to fend off further displacement and deterritorialization These radical cartographies not only galvanize political agency and collective action, but they also foster community connections and fuel cultural continuity.

— Laurel C. Smith, University of Oklahoma

A highly welcomed volume…[Radical Cartographies] addresses participatory mapmaking as a means to preserve and strengthen indigenous knowledge about their past and present by reflecting on their landscapes, ancestral memories as well as ritual and agricultural practices...the book is a lesson on how others relate and interact with the world in a sustainable way by bridging space and time.

— Anthropos

Timely and necessary...These case studies demonstrate across different countries and communities the intractable and interdependent problems of human rights and environmental rights. This is why [Radical Cartographies] seems so responsive to our moment. While the book is written to explain the maps and the work done there, it seems impossible to not respond from a place of empathy or outrage. Sletto’s work and the work of his colleagues demonstrate that critical scholarship can offer public benefit on these issues, if we are willing to pay attention—for our own landscapes, for marginalized peoples, or indeed for the earth as a whole.

— Society & Space

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction< Radical Social Cartographies Bjørn Sletto Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I
1 Oral Narratives in the Rincón Zapoteco A Cartography of Processes Melquiades Cruz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 Social Polygraphy Territory as a Living Memorial to Culture and Nature Álvaro César Velasco Álvarez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3 Emulating Kuyujani Boundary Making in the Caura River Basin, Venezuela Nalúa Rosa Silva Monterrey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
PART II
4 Revealing Territorial Illusions and Political Fictions through Participatory Cartography Wendy Pineda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
5 Mapuche Cartography Defending Ixofillmogen Pablo Mansilla Quiñones and Miguel Melin Pehuen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
6 The Ethnocartography of Sumak Allpa The Kichwa Indigenous Community of Pastaza, Ecuador Alfredo Vitery and Alexandra Lamiña Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
7 Social Cartography and Territorial Planning in Robles, Colombia Carlos Alberto González Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
PART III
8 New Social Cartography and Ethnographic Practice Alfredo Wagner Berno De Almeida Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
9 Social Cartography and the Struggle for Multiethnic, Urban Indigenous Lands The Case of the Beija-Flor Aldeia in Rio Preto da Eva, Brazil Emmanuel De Almeida Farias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
10 Participatory Cultural Mapping in Nvwken, Mapuce Territory, Argentina Exploring Other Forms of Territorial Representation María Laura Nahuel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
11 Political Appropriation of Social Cartography in Defense of Quilombola Territories in Alcântara, Maranhão, Brazil Davi Pereira Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
Commentary What Sort of Territory? What Sort of Map? Joe Bryan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Afterword Charles R. Hale Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 256

eBook

Published: August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9781477320891