By Catalina Rey Hernandez and Laura Giraldo Martinez | Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University
During our 6th Riverside Meeting on June 30, we discussed the importance of ‘confianza’ with Prof. dr. Michiel Baud, and explored the possibilities of counter cartographies with Prof. dr. Edward Huijbens.
As a rhizome, we explored the multiple and non-hierarchical relations and conceptualizations of ‘confianza’ as a way of commons-relations, as principle in itself and as an expression of solidarity networks with all its connecting implications.
The second part of the session was focused on territorial transformations through cartography as a contested practice, understanding different ways of how mapping can be a political declaration and an act of resistance to create alternative cartographies based on other ways of understanding the world.
Finally, we put in practice the discussed counter-mapping insights by walking around a section of the Amstel river and looking at the urban-cultural landscape through different lenses: How would the state represent the river? How we could represent commoning values through a map? What would be important to visualize for workers, feminist or minorities?
References
Gieseking, J.J. (2013). Where We Go From Here: The Mental Sketch Mapping Method and Its Analytic Components. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(9) 712– 724
Oslender, O. (2021). Decolonizing cartography and ontological conflict: Counter-mapping in Colombia and “cartographies otherwise”. Political Geography 89: 102444