Counter-mapping and critical pedagogy – presentation at ICTA/UAB

On the 13^th of December 2024, postdoc researcher Daniele Tubino de Souza presented at ICTA, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, recent research on counter-mapping and critical pedagogy she has been developing along with fellow researchers and partners, Rutgerd Boelens, Karolien Van Teijlien, and Gabriela Ruales, in the context of Riverhood and River Commons projects. The talk focused on the findings presented in the recently published in Geoforum, “Seeing rivers otherwise: Critical cartography as a form of critical pedagogy”.

It is argued in this paper that the emancipatory nature of these counter-maps is very much dependent on how power relations and different knowledges are negotiated in the critical process of map-making, something that cannot be taken for granted. Departing from that observation, the presented study looks into how counter cartography, and in particular counter-mapping processes by water justice movements, may benefit from insights from the field and praxis of critical pedagogy. This connection is made since a great potential to be unlocked in exploring critical cartography from the perspective of counter-mapping is identified. Rather than dissecting the outcomes produced by a critical cartographic practice, in that case, the attention is on the transformative and actionable potential that can be found in the mapping process itself. This topic was explored in the context of riverine grassroots movements and their counter-mapping processes: the Amazonian Napo province and the Andean district of Licto, Chimborazo province. Struggles around water and water justice movements are claimed to be particularly suitable for this analysis because of their highly contested nature; water, as a vital common good, is subject to divergent interests, overlapping claims, ontological representations, and power dynamics that regulate its use and management.

Engaging critical pedagogy to reflect on counter-mapping processes has helped to look more closely at the power/knowledge dynamics that take place between the multiple actors involved in creating, engaging with, and using countermaps as well as the emancipatory potential such dynamics create. Critical pedagogy, as a field of thought and praxis, emphasizes how dialogical interactions unfold throughout the production of knowledge aimed at transformative change. Insights from this field have drawn attention to the critical importance of the purpose and process of each counter-mapping, the networks of actors that are forged, and how subjectivities are reshaped through the process of mapping. The roles played by different actors within this network generate dialogue and its potential to bring forth counterconducts through the mapping (e.g. the map’s making and performance). In this process, it was noticed that the emergence of emancipatory knowledge is facilitated (or rather, co-created) through an iterative process of dialogue cultivated over time, fostered by direct exchanges between actors operating within a territorial scale that outlines shared practices.

The talk stimulated a rich debate with researchers at ICTA (mainly associated with Global Political Ecology and the LASEG group), particularly around the connections drawn with the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) project. The researchers acknowledged that when it comes to ‘maps’ or ‘counter-maps’, the focus is still very much on the ‘map’ as an outcome, as a final product, and little attention is given to the process and how to harvest its potential. When we look at the possibilities and potentials that can emerge from the making of the map and its process, we may find that we begin to see more; different, creative and disruptive possibilities in terms of the methods that can be employed may come to the surface. This realisation leads us to consider the transgressive co-learning paths that can be explored in the process. Thus, navigating through critical pedagogy as a way of looking at and informing these unfolding learning processes triggered by map-making can help to devise the kinds of methods that can be integrated. For example, we can consider the potential for ’embodied learning’ that can be facilitated by the necessary exploration of territory in map-making. As suggested by Marcel Llavera-Pasquin, a postdoctoral researcher at ICTA and one of the current coordinators of the EJAtlas, we can think of ‘mapping with our feet’ as an experiential and transformative experience that can take place in the preparation of the actual mapping (or drawing of the territory). Walking the territory, and perceiving it with the senses, can give us inputs to the mapping that would not be brought in if the attention was only on the result, the depicted map.