Counter-mapping
Counter-mapping is creating maps that challenge "dominant power structures, to further seemingly progressive goals". Counter-mapping is used in multiple disciplines to reclaim colonized territory. Counter-maps are prolific in indigenous cultures, "counter-mapping may reify, reinforce, and extend settler boundaries even as it seeks to challenge dominant mapping practices; and still, counter-mapping may simultaneously create conditions of possibility for decolonial ways of representing space and place." The term came into use in the United States when Nancy Peluso used it in 1995 to describe the commissioning of maps by forest users in Kalimantan, Indonesia, to contest government maps of forest areas that undermined indigenous interests. The resultant counter-hegemonic maps strengthen forest users' resource claims. There are numerous expressions closely related to counter-mapping: ethnocartography, alternative cartography, mapping-back, counter-hegemonic mapping, deep mapping and public participatory mapping. Moreover, the terms critical cartography, subversive cartography, bio-regional mapping, and remapping are sometimes used interchangeably with counter-mapping, but in practice encompass much more.
Whilst counter-mapping still refers to indigenous mapping, it is increasingly being applied to non-indigenous mapping in economically developed countries. Such counter-mapping has been facilitated by processes of neoliberalism, and technological democratisation. Examples of counter-mapping include attempts to demarcate and protect traditional territories, community mapping, public participation geographic information systems, and mapping by a relatively weak state to counter the resource claims of a stronger state. The power of counter-maps to advocate policy change in a bottom-up manner led commentators to affirm that counter-mapping should be viewed as a tool of governance.
Despite its emancipatory potential, counter-mapping has not gone without criticism. There is a tendency for counter-mapping efforts to overlook the knowledge of women, minorities, and other vulnerable, disenfranchised groups. From this perspective, counter-mapping is only empowering for a small subset of society, whilst others become further marginalised.Origins
Nancy Peluso, professor of forest policy, coined the term 'counter-mapping' in 1995, having examined the implementation of two forest mapping strategies in Kalimantan. One set of maps belonged to state forest managers, and the international financial institutions that supported them, such as the World Bank. This strategy recognised mapping as a means of protecting local claims to territory and resources to a government that had previously ignored them. The other set of maps had been created by Indonesian NGOs, who often contract international experts to assist with mapping village territories. The goal of the second set of maps was to co-opt the cartographic conventions of the Indonesian state, to legitimise the claims by the Dayak people, indigenous to Kalimantan, to the rights to forest use. Counter-mappers in Kalimantan have acquired GIS technologies, satellite technology, and computerised resource management tools, consequently making the Indonesian state vulnerable to counter-maps. As such, counter-mapping strategies in Kalimantan have led to successful community action to block, and protest against, oil palm plantations and logging concessions imposed by the central government.
It must, however, be recognised that counter-mapping projects existed long before coinage of the term. Counter-maps are rooted in map art practices that date to the early 20th century; in the mental maps movement of the 1960s; in indigenous and bioregional mapping; and parish mapping.Parish Maps Project
In 1985, the charity Common Ground launched the Parish Maps Project, a bottom-up initiative encouraging local people to map elements of the environment valued by their parish. Since then, more than 2,500 English parishes have made such maps. Parish mapping projects aim to put every local person in an 'expert' role. Sue Clifford exemplifies this notion, affirming: "making a parish map is about creating a community expression of values, and about beginning to assert ideas for involvement. It is about taking the place in your own hands". The final map product is typically an artistic artefact, usually painted, and often displayed in village halls or schools. By questioning the biases of cartographic conventions and challenging predominant power effects of mapping, The Parish Maps Project is an early example of what Peluso went on to term 'counter-mapping'Development
Neoliberalism
The development of counter-mapping can be situated within the neoliberal political-economic restructuring of the state. Prior to the 1960s, equipping a map-making enterprise was chiefly the duty of a single agency, funded by the national government. In this sense, maps have conventionally been the products of privileged knowledges. However, processes of neoliberalism, predominantly since the late 1970s, have reconfigured the state's role in the cartographic project. Neoliberalism denotes an emphasis on markets and minimal states, whereby individual choice is perceived to have replaced the mass-production of commodities. The fact that citizens are now performing cartographic functions that were once exclusively state-controlled can be partially explained through a shift from "roll-back neoliberalism", in which the state dismantled some of its functions, to "roll-out neoliberalism", in which new modes of operating have been constructed. In brief, the state can be seen to have "hollowed out" and delegated some of its mapping power to citizens.Counter-mapping as neoliberal governmentality
refers to a particular form of state power that is exercised when citizens self-discipline by acquiescing to state knowledge. Historically, cartography has been a fundamental governmentality strategy, a technology of power, used for surveillance and control. Competing claimants and boundaries made no appearance on state-led maps. This links to Foucault's notion of "subjugated knowledges" - ones that did not rise to the top, or were disqualified. However, through neoliberalising processes, the state has retracted from performing some of its cartographic functions. Consequently, rather than being passive recipients of top-down map distribution, people now have the opportunity to claim sovereignty over the mapping process. In this new regime of neoliberal cartographic governmentality the "insurrection of subjugated knowledges" occurs, as counter-mapping initiatives incorporate previously marginalised voices.Technological democratisation?
In response to technological change, predominantly since the 1980s, cartography has increasingly been democratised. The wide availability of high-quality location information has enabled mass-market cartography based on Global Positioning System receivers, home computers, and the internet. The fact that civilians are using technologies which were once elitist led Brosius et al.. to assert that counter-mapping involves "stealing the master's tools". Nevertheless, numerous early counter-mapping projects successfully utilised manual techniques, and many still use them. For instance, in recent years, the use of simple sketch mapping approaches has been revitalised, whereby maps are made on the ground, using natural materials. Similarly, the use of scale model constructions and felt boards, as means of representing cartographic claims of different groups, have become increasingly popular. Consequently, Wood et al. assert that counter-mappers can "make gateau out of technological crumbs".In recent years, Public Participation Geographical Information Systems have attempted to take the power of the map out of the hands of the cartographic elite, putting it into the hands of the people. For instance, Kyem designed a PPGIS method termed Exploratory Strategy for Collaboration, Management, Allocation, and Planning. The method sought to integrate the concerns and experiences of three rural communities in the Ashanti Region of Ghana into official forest management practices. Kyem concluded that, notwithstanding the potential of PPGIS, it is possible that the majority of the rich and powerful people in the area would object to some of the participatory uses of GIS. For example, loggers in Ghana affirmed that the PPGIS procedures were too open and democratic. Thus, despite its democratising potential, there are barriers to its implementation. More recently, Wood et al.. disputed the notion of PPGIS entirely, affirming that it is "scarcely GIS, intensely hegemonic, hardly public, and anything but participatory".Counter-mapping as governance
makes problematic state-centric notions of regulation, recognising that there has been a shift to power operating across several spatial scales. Similarly, counter-mapping complicates state distribution of cartography, advocating bottom-up participatory mapping projects. Counter-mapping initiatives, often without state assistance, attempt to exert power. As such, counter-mapping conforms to Jessop's notion of "governance without government". Another characteristic of governance is its "purposeful effort to steer, control or manage sectors or facets of society" towards a common goal. Likewise, as maps exude power and authority, they are a trusted medium with the ability to 'steer' society in a particular direction. In brief, cartography, once the tool of kings and governments, is now being used as a tool of governance - to advocate policy change from the grassroots. The environmental sphere is one context in which counter-mapping has been utilised as a governance tool.In contrast to expert knowledges, lay knowledges are increasingly valuable to decision-makers, in part due to the scientific uncertainty surrounding environmental issues. Participatory counter-mapping projects are an effective means of incorporating lay knowledges into issues surrounding environmental governance. For instance, counter-maps depicting traditional use of areas now protected for biodiversity have been used to allow resource use, or to promote public debate about the issue, rather than forcing relocation. For example, the World Wide Fund for Nature used the results of counter-mapping to advocate for the reclassification of several strictly protected areas into Indonesian national parks, including Kayan Mentarang and Gunung Lorentz. The success of such counter-mapping efforts led Alcorn to affirm that governance, rather than government, offers the best hope for good natural resource management. In short, it can be seen that "maps are powerful political tools in ecological and governance discussions".