Cartographies of supranationalism: Creating and silencing territories in the “Arab Homeland”

In the predominately Arab states of north Africa and southwest Asia, a geopolitical entity exists that is rather uncommon elsewhere in the world. The “Arab Homeland,” as it is referred, is a readily accepted cartographic discourse throughout much of this extensive region. The construction of this entity emerged at the same time as the pan-Arab movement of the mid-twentieth century, which was fueled and motivated by 20th century geopolitical conflicts between Arabs and European imperialists, and between Arabs and Israelis. Through a critical reading of its cartographic construction since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1919, I provide unique insights into the numerous, complex, and even contradictory geopolitics of the construction of the Arab Homeland. My analysis of several hundred maps produced in eight different states of the Arab Homeland reveals that from the mid 1950s onward that the Arab Homeland was not only commonplace, but also how this supranational territorial entity confused and at times defied generally accepted divisions of the world. Expanding upon literature on supranational entities and the state, I show that territory is not only still important in our globalized world, but that it also has a complex and at times contradictory relationship with the concepts and scales of the state and the supranational. In emphasizing the role of territory in its construction, I also inject the importance of geography and territory for the pan-Arab movement, which is a factor that has been greatly under-theorized.     

Decolonizing cartography and ontological conflict: Counter-mapping in Colombia and “cartographies otherwise”

Discussions in decolonial literature have recently drawn on the concept of “ontological conflict” to reflect on the conflictual entanglements of diverse cosmologies. In Latin America (as elsewhere) these conflicts are frequently of a territorial nature, with indigenous and black communities making claims to communal land rights as indispensable part of their respective ways of being-in-the-world, which the post-colonial state has increasingly begun to acknowledge, often in the form of new political constitutions. In this article I examine the role of cartography in the resolution of such ontological conflicts; in particular a participatory mapping exercise in Colombia known as “social cartography,” which aims to challenge dominant cartographic representations and empowering local communities vis-à-vis the state. At the same time, I reflect on the limits of such an emancipatory vision and on the ways in which Colombia's version of counter-mapping has been coopted by dominant power. Inspired by the Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality framework, I contextualize this experience within other radical mapping exercises, or “cartographies otherwise,” in places such as Australia, Palestine and the Straits of Gibraltar, to finally suggest that the art of decolonizing cartography may be seen as a tool of Hardt & Negri's project of a multitude in resistance.     

Trapped in mirror-images: The rhetoric of maps in Israel/Palestine

The map of Israel/Palestine has long been used by both Israelis and Palestinians, from their unequal power positions, as a celebrated national symbol. It is virtually the same map, depicting a sliver-shaped land between River Jordan and the Mediterranean, two overlapping homelands in one territory. Thus, a single geo-body appears to contain two antagonistic and asymmetrical nations, locked in a bitter struggle. The article interprets the uncanny mirror-maps of Israel/Palestine by drawing on recent work in critical cartography. One approach has read maps as rhetorical claims for power and over territory; indeed, the mirror-maps of Israel/Palestine are often read as indications of maximalist territorial ambitions and hidden wishes to “wipe the other off the map”. However, this article suggests an alternative, de-territorialised reading of political maps as “empty signifiers” of multiple meanings. Following analysis of maps as objects of performance, whose meaning depends on users and contexts, the article emphasises the ritualistic sacralisation of the Israel/Palestine map. Embedded within discourses of memory and history, maps are tools of narrating the nation, often in diasporic contexts, carrying with them vast emotional significance to both peoples. These issues were largely left unaddressed by the territorial paradigm which has dominated scholarship and political negotiations. Moving the discussion of geography beyond narrow territorial claims towards an appreciation of the richness and heterogeneity of space is crucial, yet faces formidable challenges both politically and conceptually.     

The political ecology of recovery from armed conflict: the case of landmines in Mozambique

The devastation wrought by landmines on local populations is well known. However, the broader effects of mine presence on postwar recovery, and the progress of a ‘peace process’, remain largely unexamined. Both the academic and the practitioner literature regarding landmines lack a framework within which the mix of economic, political, social, agricultural, and ecological repercussions of mine presence in a context of postwar recovery can be investigated. Here, we consider the utility of political ecology to examine the influence of landmine presence on the socioecological relations important to postwar recovery in Mozambique. Landmines constitute the primary obstacle to the reconstruction and development in Mozambique. Because mine presence influences different aspects of recovery differently, we have selected three cases in the country where mine presence has impacted important components of recovery: agriculture, transportation corridors, and international investment. Peace process and recovery efforts by the international community do not presently address the broader, non-medical influences of landmine presence on recovery, and it is the intention of this article to contribute to an initial examination of these issues.     

OpenStreetMap in Israel and Palestine – ‘Game changer’ or reproducer of contested cartographies?

In Israel and Palestine, map-making practices were always entangled with contradictive spatial identities and imbalanced power resources. Although an Israeli narrative has largely dominated the ‘cartographic battlefield’, the latest chapter of this story has not been written yet: collaborative forms of web 2.0 cartographies have restructured power relations in mapping practices and challenged traditional monopolies on map and spatial data production. Thus, we can expect web 2.0 cartographies to be a ‘game changer’ for cartography in Palestine and Israel. In this paper, I review this assumption with the popular example of OpenStreetMap (OSM). Following a mixed methods approach, I comparatively analyze the genesis of OSM in Israel and Palestine. Although nationalist motives do not play a significant role on either side, it turns out that the project is dominated by Israeli and international mappers, whereas Palestinians have hardly contributed to OSM. As a result, social fragmentations and imbalances between Israel and Palestine are largely reproduced through OSM data. Discussing the low involvement of Palestinians, I argue that OSM's ground truth paradigm might be a watershed for participation. Presumably, the project's data are less meaningful in some local contexts than in others. Moreover, the seemingly apolitical approach to map only ‘facts on the ground’ reaffirms present spatio-social order and thus the power relations behind it. Within a Palestinian narrative, however, many aspects of the factual material space might appear not as neutral physical objects but as results of suppression, in which case, any ‘accurate’ spatial representation, such as OSM, becomes objectionable.     

The political ecology of water memory: Contending narratives of past hydraulic infrastructures in Barcelona (2015–2021)

In the context of ecological emergency and crisis of representation of the capitalist democracy, the battles over water management have become ever more politicised: who is to administer water resources, how, and with what legitimacy? This article examines a disregarded dimension of the recent water conflict in Barcelona by looking into the politics of memory as part of a struggle for legitimacy between the private water company Agbar, and Barcelona en Comú (BeC), the political platform governing the city since 2015, and defending the ‘remunicipalisation’ of water. By combining memory studies and critical discourse analysis we pay attention to the dynamic resignification of the hydraulic infrastructure as spaces or “sites of memory” (lieux de mémoire; Nora, 1998). Barcelona en Comú narrative retrieves a forgotten past of local sites and experiences in public management of water. In contrast, Agbar defends its legitimacy by advancing a narrative of linear progress and social inclusion that re-signifies its 150-year long history and co-opts key “empty signifiers” (Laclau, 2005) from the discourse of the Indignados and BeC. Theoretically, we advance that a temporal turn in political ecology and geography, complementing the concern with spatiality, could usefully draw on memory studies to analyse the growing memorialization of water discourses and sites, as well as their political significance. The article thus investigates a question that has not been systematically explored by political ecologists: how the entanglement of space and historical memory is mobilized in the conflict over the use and management of the environment.     

Defining invasive alien species from the roots up: Lessons from the ‘De-eucalyptising Brigades’ in Galicia,Spain

Social and cultural perspectives are increasingly considered in the literature on invasive alien species (IAS), after decades of being underexplored. However, within this growing body of research, there is little investigation into the role and knowledge of everyday rural and environmentalist networks in defining and engaging with or against the expansion of IAS. This paper contributes to debates on the political and spatial implications of this concept, through a critical examination of the bottom-up initiative of the ‘De-eucalyptising Brigades' (Galicia, Spain), which aims to remove eucalyptus trees from community-based property lands. A survey of participants of this movement paired with semi-structured interviews show the relevance of social-cultural dynamics in defining IAS. Our results also show how investigating activism against forestry involving a potential IAS sheds light on the everyday conflicts around who defines IAS and how they are defined.     

Characterizing and evaluating rival discourses of the ‘sustainable city’: Towards a politics of pragmatic adversarialism

For many, shifting economic and social contexts have created the conditions for a radical reappraisal of the orthodox image of the 'sustainable city'. However, in assessing such potentialities, there is insufficient knowledge about the way in which local actors construct, live out and are gripped by this signifier. This article responds to this deficit by exploring how key actors engaged in urban development actually interpret the challenges of the 'sustainable city'. In part, using a Q methodology study in Bristol and Grenoble, we discern and construct three distinctive discourses of the sustainable city, which we name progressive reformism, public localism, and moral stewardship. Our findings challenge previous critiques of sustainable urbanism. We observe no consistent support for mainstream conceptions of sustainable urban development, but neither do we find significant support for entrepreneurial or radical green localist discourses of the sustainable city. Instead, we identify a common indifference to the tenets of ecological modernization (and, by extension, entrepreneurialism), and a shared skepticism of local self-sufficiency. We thus argue that such discourses offer uncertain foundations upon which to construct new visions of the 'sustainable city'. In our view, this is because of the transformation of the 'sustainable city' from a relatively fixed idea into a floating signifier, coupled with the practices of local practitioners as policy bricoleurs. We conclude that efforts to develop new visions of 'sustainable cities' are best served by fostering an agonistic ethos of 'pragmatic adversarialism' amongst strategic leaders and stakeholders, which foregrounds politics and the right to difference.     

Environmental violence and crises of legitimacy in New Caledonia

This paper addresses the question of what factors besides resource abundance or scarcity play crucial roles in conditioning resource-related violent conflict, by investigating the responses of residents of villages near a mining project in New Caledonia to Rhéébù Nùù, an indigenous environmental protest group. An overlooked and yet crucial factor in local support for Rhéébù Nùù was a lack of faith in the government and, more fundamentally, in the democratic system through which representatives were elected. Instead, villagers put their faith in a revitalization of customary authority. Thus, environmental violence is not driven simply by resource abundance or scarcity; in this instance, it masked a crisis of political legitimacy, grounded in a history of opposition to the colonial power. This leads to the paper's second question: What constitutes a basis for political legitimacy, and how is this legitimacy – and its contestation – mediated by socio-cultural concerns? This study suggests that legitimacy requires the achievement of three elements: representation of people's interests, coherence with cultural identity, and popular acceptance of methods used to exert power. The protest group was more successful at achieving these elements of legitimacy, and thus the support of the local residents, than was either the government or the mining company. However, not all community members felt that Rhéébù Nùù indeed had the support of customary authority, and many disagreed with the group's violent tactics. Thus, protest groups may be subject to the same criteria of legitimacy as the governments or other bodies that they oppose.     

State power and protected areas: Dynamics and contradictions of forest conservation in Madhya Pradesh, India

The traditionally coercive and state-controlled governance of protected areas for nature conservation in developing countries has in many cases undergone change in the context of widespread decentralization and liberalization. This article examines an emerging “mixed” (coercive, community- and market-oriented) conservation approach in managed-resource protected areas and its effects on state power through a case study on forest protection in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The findings suggest that imperfect decentralization and partial liberalization resulted in changed forms, rather than uniform loss, of state power. A forest co-management program paradoxically strengthened local capacity and influence of the Forest Department, which generally maintained its territorial and knowledge-based control over forests and timber management. Furthermore, deregulation and reregulation enabled the state to withdraw from uneconomic activities but also implied reduced place-based control of non-timber forest products. Generally, the new policies and programs contributed to the separation of livelihoods and forests in Madhya Pradesh. The article concludes that regulatory, community- and market-based initiatives would need to be better coordinated to lead to more effective nature conservation and positive livelihood outcomes.