Counter-mapping

Counter-mapping refers to efforts to map "against dominant power structures, to further seemingly progressive goals". The term was coined by Nancy Peluso in 1995 to describe the commissioning of maps by forest users in Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a means of contesting state maps of forest areas that typically undermined indigenous interests. The resultant counter-hegemonic maps had the ability to strengthen forest users' resource claims. There are numerous expressions closely related to counter-mapping: ethnocartography, alternative cartography, mapping-back, counter-hegemonic mapping, and public participatory mapping. Moreover, the terms: critical cartography, subversive cartography, bioregional mapping, and remapping are sometimes used synonymously with counter-mapping, but in practice encompass much more.

Whilst counter-mapping still primarily refers to indigenous cartographic efforts, it is increasingly being applied to non-indigenous mapping initiatives in economically developed countries. Such counter-mapping efforts have been facilitated by processes of neoliberalism, and technological democratisation. Examples of counter-mapping include attempts to demarcate and protect traditional territories, community mapping, Public Participatory Geographical 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.

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.

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