ABSTRACT
Counter-mapping’s promise for development lies with its claims to make the invisible visible, producing a new, more accurate understanding of space through popular participation. Maps play an instrumental role in this approach, documenting the existence of indigenous territories, customary use, informal settlements, and other entities previously not found on state-issued maps. The overall goal is one of challenging state sovereignty, forcing a reconciliation with its constitutive exclusions by way of securing a place on the map. On those terms, counter- mapping has had considerable success across Latin America. No more visible measure of that success exists than the massive transfer of state-owned lands to various forms of community ownership as part of a region-wide “territorial turn” (Offen, 2003; Bryan, 2012). At the same time, the spatial expansion and intensification of capitalism continues unchecked by these new forms of territoriality, raising the question of what, if anything, counter-mapping counters?
