What is the relationship between this map…

…And this wall?

How does a map make an argument?

"Maps are more or less permanent, more or less graphic artifacts that support the descriptive function in human discourse that links territory to other things, advancing in this way the interests of those making (or controlling the making) of the maps."
(Dennis Wood, Rethinking the Power of Maps, 20)

“The map is a text, like any other in this regard, whose meaning and impact may go far beyond the limits of technique, the author’s intention, and the mere transmittal of information…All cartography operates within and makes use of such unacknowledged preconditions and more or less accepted symbolic forms and mapping conventions. The impact of these techniques and effects are only clearer and sharper in propagandistic texts.”
(John Pickles, A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the Geo-Coded World, 44)

How does a map precede A Nation?

"The image of the national map was one of the few visual artifacts demonstrating what many perceived to be either an abstract or even untenable fiction, namely that there could be a national union between disjointed regions and politically disparate people." (Bruckner, The Social Life of Maps)

“In terms of most communication theories and common sense, a map is a scientific abstraction of reality. A map merely represents something which already exists objectively ‘there.’ In the history I have described, this relationship was reversed. A map anticipated spatial reality, not vice versa. In other words, a map was a model for, rather than a model of, what it purported to represent.” (Thongchai, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation)

“State borders are brought into being through mapping” (Wood, 32)

What is the relationship between the Mapping of territory and the militarization of territory?

"People create maps only when their social relations call for them, & the social relations that most insistently call for maps are those of the modern state, wherever in the world."
(Denis Wood, Rethinking the Power of Maps, 19)

What is counter-mapping?

“Critical cartographers question the paradigm of maps as objective, accurate representations of the world. They see maps as political because they are “products of privileged knowledge” that simultaneously produces and stabilizes power structures” (Felsing and Frischknecht, Shifts in Mapping, 99)

“Mapping is eternally linked to stories, and counter-mapping acknowledges the use of more than one knowledge base.”
(https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/mar/06/counter-mapping-cartography-that-lets-the-powerless-speak)

"In response to two decades of intensive industrial timber exploitation and the Indonesian government’s superseding of customary forest rights through official planning and mapping efforts, an alternative or “counter” mapping movement has begun. Local activists, with international and sometimes government assistance of various sorts, are using sketch maps to delineate and formalize claims to forest territories and resources their villages have traditionally managed." (Peluso, ‘Whose Woods Are These?’)

In what ways can counter-mapping respond to mapping as an 'authoritative resource'?

(1) Representing what is NOT on standardized maps, eg. through inserting people onto resource maps/ maps of functions of state power

(2) Maps come about through a process that allows for people to control representations of themselves

Where is the body of the one who maps?

“The wall differs from the border itself in a few ways:

• It is unilateral, in that it is built by only one party (although both sides can build opposing walls), whereas the border line is, in principle, agreed upon by the neighboring states.

• It follows approximately the demarcation line while remaining within the sovereign territory of the constructing state.

• The wall only encompasses a marginal aspect of the border, reducing it to one of its most restrictive dimensions; where, by definition, a border is first and foremost an interface that connects two countries, a wall makes the juncture hard and sealed.

• Lastly, the concept of the wall includes an accompanying surveillance apparatus that may include sensors, border roads, lighting, cameras, checkpoints, or drones meant to enhance the wall’s impermeability.”

  (Élisabeth Vallet, The World is Witnessing a Rapid Proliferation of Border Walls)

Where is your body in relation to the border you are representing?

This is an ethical question:

The presence and position of the body of the map-maker

or the person who gazes

or the person who listens or speaks in relation to a border

is itself an ethical position

and that position will always be informing the argument that the representation of the border can make.

What does the position of your body allow you to say about the border that you are representing?

An Introductory Bibliography of Counter-mapping

Agha, Zena. n.d. “Maps, Technology, and Decolonial Spatial Practices in Palestine.” Al-Shabaka (blog). Accessed November 16, 2022a. https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/maps-technology-and-decolonial-spatial-practices-in-palestine/.

———. n.d. “The US Law Restricting Satellite Imagery of Palestine-Israel.” Al-Shabaka (blog). Accessed November 16, 2022b. https://al-shabaka.org/memos/the-us-law-restricting-satellite-imagery-of-palestine-israel/.

Akerman, James R. 2017. Decolonizing the Map: Cartography from Colony to Nation. Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Alarcón, Josh Begley, Daniel. n.d. “Fatal Migrations, 2001-2016.” The Intercept. Accessed November 8, 2022. https://projects.theintercept.com/fatal-migrations/.

Axel, Nick, Ann Lui, Mimi Zeiger, Iker Gil, Ann Lui, Library Stack, and International Architectural Exhibition. 2018. Dimensions of Citizenship. Los Angeles], New Haven, Connecticut]: Inventory Press LLC, Library Stack.

Briante, Susan. 2020. Defacing the Monument. Infidel Poetics Series #5. Blacksburg, Virginia: Noemi Press.

Brückner, Martin. 2017a. The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860. Williamsburg, Virginia : Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press: Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture ;

Campos-Delgado, Amalia. 2018. “Counter-Mapping Migration: Irregular Migrants’ Stories through Cognitive Mapping.” Mobilities 13 (4): 488–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2017.1421022.

Crampton, Jeremy W., and John Krygier. 2005. “An Introduction to Critical Cartography.” ACME an International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 4 (1): 11–33.

“Introduction: Maps? | Jacket2.” n.d. Accessed November 8, 2022. https://jacket2.org/commentary/introduction-maps.

Mogel, Lize, and Alexis Bhagat. 2007. An Atlas of Radical Cartography. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press.

O’Dwyer, Laurence. 2018. “Counter-Mapping: Cartography That Lets the Powerless Speak.” The Guardian, March 6, 2018, sec. Science. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/mar/06/counter-mapping-cartography-that-lets-the-powerless-speak.

PDXPoets99percent, dir. 2012. Remember to Wave Excerpt of Artist Lecture by Kaia Sand/PSU MFA Monday Night Lecture Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQWJr1eFWk.

Peluso, Nancy Lee. 1995. “Whose Woods Are These? Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Antipode 27 (4): 383–406. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1995.tb00286.x.

Pickles, John. 2003a. A History of Spaces: Mapping, Cartographic Reason, and the over-Coded World.

“Radical cartography.” n.d. Accessed October 17, 2022. http://www.radicalcartography.net/.

Rankin, William. 2016. After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Schranz, Christine. 2021. Shifts in Mapping: Maps as a Tool of Knowledge. 1st ed. Sozial- Und Kulturgeographie 54. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Sletto, Bjø, Joe Bryan, Alfredo Wagner, and Charles Hale. 2020. Radical Cartographies: Participatory Mapmaking from Latin America. Austin, United States: University of Texas Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/harvard-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6340507.

“The Institute of Marking and Measuring : Projects.” Accessed October 4, 2022. http://www.markingandmeasuring.org/projects.html.

walk listen create, dir. 2021. Locative Maps: Agents of Control or Tools for Subversion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N27Yahl9Ikk.

Winichakul, Thongchai. 2021. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824841294.

Wood, Denis. 1992. The Power of Maps. Mappings. New York: Guilford Press.