#map

Speciale 21 marzo. Narcotraffico, cantieri e clan stranieri: tutti i processi di mafia in Piemonte

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Dal 2011 a oggi, oltre 25 inchieste giudiziarie e decine di condanne per mafia. In Piemonte i clan, anche stranieri, si occupano di narcotraffico e lavori pubblici. E coltivano buoni rapporti con i colletti bianchi

Per la conoscenza e il contrasto alle mafie in Piemonte esiste un prima e un dopo Minotauro. L’operazione, scattata all’alba dell’8 giugno 2011 con l’arresto di 142 presunti ‘ndranghetisti e complici, ha cambiato la percezione comune della presenza criminale nella regione. Da quella indagine e successivamente dalle udienze del processo, celebrato nell’aula bunker del carcere di Torino, sono emersi i legami tra certi esponenti della ‘ndrangheta e politici locali, alcuni dei quali (come il sindaco di Leinì, Nevio Coral, o un assessore di Chivasso, Bruno Trunfio) condannati per le loro pesanti complicità.

«È evidente che l’organizzazione ha cercato di infiltrare la politica e le istituzioni», aveva detto l’allora procuratore capo di Torino, Gian Carlo Caselli, nel corso della sua requisitoria. Il maxiprocesso e le condanne seguite hanno modificato la consapevolezza pubblica del problema ma anche, più tecnicamente, l’operato della magistratura.

Prima di Minotauro gli inquirenti partivano dall’indagine sui reati scopo (cioè su quei reati compiuti dagli associati, ad esempio le estorsioni) per poi cercare di dimostrare l’esistenza di un’associazione mafiosa. Con Minotauro il metodo cambia: «C’è l’associazione, ne parlano nelle intercettazioni, andiamo a vedere cosa fa», ha sintetizzato durante un incontro di Libera nel 2021 Roberto Sparagna, il magistrato che – raccogliendo le confessioni del pentito Rocco Varacalli – ha imbastito la maxi-inchiesta ed è oggi procuratore aggiunto a Torino.

I frutti di quel lavoro hanno portato ad almeno altre 25 inchieste giudiziarie sul territorio piemontese. Inchieste che – con più di 450 indagati e parecchie decine di condanne per 416 bis – hanno dimostrato come la presenza criminale in Piemonte sia un fenomeno in costante evoluzione. L’ultimo rapporto della Direzione investigativa antimafia del 2024 indica la presenza della ‘ndrangheta in almeno 24 comuni.
Politici e mafiosi

Pochi giorni dopo Minotauro, il 21 giugno 2011, l’indagine Albachiara ha rivelato le presenze mafiose nel Basso Piemonte, tra le province di Asti, Cuneo e Alessandria, dove la criminalità aveva stretto rapporti con la politica: un consigliere comunale, Giuseppe Caridi, era stato addirittura affiliato e perciò poi condannato per mafia.

Nel 2012 l’operazione Colpo di coda ha approfondito la presenza della ‘ndrangheta a Chivasso (Torino) e Livorno Ferraris (Vercelli). In quel contesto, gli investigatori hanno scoperto l’impegno di alcuni affiliati nella raccolta dei voti a favore del candidato sindaco del centrosinistra, Gianni De Mori, per le elezioni amministrative di Chivasso. De Mori non fu mai coinvolto nel procedimento, ma si dimise evitando lo scioglimento del Comune per infiltrazioni mafiose.

Provvedimento che invece colpì il comune di Leinì e quello di Rivarolo Canavese. Il 2012 è stato l’annus horribilis per gli enti locali piemontesi, con il Piemonte prima regione del Nord Italia per numero di comuni sciolti per mafia: tre, in totale, considerando anche il caso di Bardonecchia (Torino), datato 1995. Nel 2014 l’operazione San Michele ha rivelato gli appetiti di alcuni ‘ndranghetisti sui lavori di movimento terra e smaltimento degli inerti nei lavori della Tav Torino-Lione.

Alcune inchieste successive, come Alto Piemonte, Barbarossa e Carminius, hanno fatto luce sugli insediamenti della ‘ndrangheta fuori dal capoluogo. La prima, del 2016, ha rivelato i legami tra uomini delle ‘ndrine e gli ultras della Juventus e scoperto altre presenze nelle province di Biella e di Vercelli. La seconda, datata 2018, ha sgominato quella che secondo gli inquirenti era la “locale” astigiana, portando all’arresto di 26 persone tra Asti, Alba e Costigliole d’Asti.
La terza, del 2019, si è concentrata sull’area di Carmagnola, ma ha colpito anche i piani alti della Regione Piemonte: un assessore, Roberto Rosso, è stato arrestato e processato per voto di scambio politico-mafioso. Secondo gli inquirenti, Rosso aveva chiesto il sostegno elettorale a due uomini della ‘ndrangheta. L’accusa ha retto fino al 2025, quando la Cassazione ha annullato la sentenza ordinando un nuovo processo d’appello: per i giudici non è dimostrato che Rosso fosse consapevole di interloquire con uomini dei clan.

Traffici di cocaina e cantieri

Il 2019 è stato l’anno di altre tre grosse indagini. Cerbero (su 66 persone legate alle locali di ‘ndrangheta a San Giusto Canavese e Volpiano, alcune delle quali coinvolte in grossi traffici internazionali di cocaina), Criminal Consulting e Pugno di ferro. Dalle ultime due operazioni è emersa una ‘ndrangheta capace di servirsi di colletti bianchi per intascare ampie fette di fondi pubblici con il ricorso ad aziende fittizie e prestanomi.

Nel 2021 l’inchiesta Platinum-Dia ha smantellato una grossa rete di narcotraffico che si riforniva nei porti del Nord Europa. Il narcotraffico con il Sudamerica è il core business anche di alcune famiglie di origini calabresi insediate da decenni a Torino e a Volpiano, come gli Agresta, i Marando, gli Assisi, già coinvolti in altre indagini come Pinocchio (2015), Cerbero e Samba.

Nel 2024 l’operazione Echidna ha fatto luce su una serie di condotte illecite nella gestione di appalti pubblici. Tra le persone messe agli arresti domiciliari figura Roberto Fantini, ex amministratore delegato di Sitalfa, parte del gruppo Sitaf che gestisce l’autostrada A32 Torino-Bardonecchia. Questa indagine ha dimostrato i legami tra l’imprenditore e un anziano ‘ndranghetista, Giuseppe Pasqua, ma anche tra quest’ultimo e un politico navigato con un trascorso tra i socialisti, Salvatore Gallo, padre dell’allora capogruppo regionale del Pd Raffaele Gallo.

Infine, la recente inchiesta Factotum ha mostrato che a Torino gli ‘ndranghetisti potevano contare su un loro “rappresentante” anche all’interno del sindacato Cisl. Secondo quanto ricostruito, l’uomo, rappresentante della Filca (la sigla dei lavoratori edili), era attivo nel favorire la latitanza di alcuni mafiosi, trovare lavori alle imprese edili degli affiliati, sostenere gli “amici” nelle vertenze e aiutare alcuni a ottenere il reddito di cittadinanza.
Clan rumeni e nigeriani

L’attività giudiziaria ha certificato la presenza sul territorio piemontese anche di mafie straniere: nel 2014 l’inchiesta Brigada ha portato per la prima volta in Italia a una condanna per 416 bis, confermata anche in Cassazione, a carico di un gruppo di cittadini rumeni dediti a estorsioni, rapine e controllo dei traffici illeciti. La successiva operazione Athenaeum ha invece confermato la presenza dei clan nigeriani Black Axe, Eiye e Maphite.

Le indagini hanno mostrato che questi gruppi sono organizzati in strutture verticistiche, rinsaldate dal vincolo di fedeltà e dalla pressione esercitata sui propri associati, anche attraverso la minaccia di ritorsioni contro i familiari rimasti in patria.

#ndrangheta #Piémont #mafia #cartographie #ndrine #visualisation #familles #colpo_di_coda #enquêtes #Cerbero #Criminal_Consulting #pugno_di_ferro #Platinum-Dia #cocaïne #Echidna #Sitalfa #Sitaf #Factotum #Cisl #Filca #Athenaeum #mafia_nigériane #mafia_roumaine #Black_Axe #Eiye #Maphite

On a quand même rétabli de quoi faire tourner le BTP, ouf !

[Un lobbying perdant] « Le gouvernement porte préjudice aux structures de terrain qui œuvrent en faveur d’une rénovation énergétique performante accessible à tous », Delphine Mugnier (Experte de la transition énergétique )

▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/06/18/le-gouvernement-porte-prejudice-aux-structures-de-terrain-qui-uvrent-en-fave

Après une suspension du dispositif #MaPrimeRénov’ en raison d’un encombrement de la demande et d’une multiplication des fraudes, le gouvernement vient d’annoncer une réouverture du dispositif uniquement pour les travaux en monogeste. Ce redémarrage partiel excluant les rénovations énergétiques globales, pourtant seul levier réellement efficace pour améliorer la performance énergétique des logements, est un abandon des ménages en situation de précarité énergétique et des objectifs environnementaux.

Contrairement aux gestes isolés, les rénovations performantes, traitant plusieurs postes en une seule intervention coordonnée, permettent des économies d’énergie durables, allégeant les factures énergétiques des ménages sur le long terme, d’améliorer significativement le confort thermique, en hiver comme en été, et la valeur des logements, ainsi que de réduire massivement les émissions de gaz à effet de serre, ce qui est indispensable pour respecter les objectifs de la stratégie nationale bas-carbone.

▻https://archive.ph/Xm06E

Derrière la pause de MaPrimeRénov’, un coup d’arrêt à la rénovation énergétique, observe finement la préposée du journal
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/06/17/derriere-la-pause-de-maprimerenov-un-coup-d-arret-a-la-renovation-energetiqu
▻https://archive.ph/pdZz4

MaPrimeRénov’ : « Le manque, et non les excès, de moyens humains de contrôle est à l’origine de la hausse des délais et des fraudes »
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/06/16/maprimerenov-le-manque-et-non-les-exces-de-moyens-humains-de-controle-est-a-

L’annonce de la suspension de MaPrimeRénov’ est un nouvel épisode de ce retournement des responsabilités : l’excès de bureaucratie et de normes est souvent mis en avant pour expliquer les trop longs délais d’instruction et la multiplication des dossiers frauduleux, qui seraient à l’origine de cette suspension. Or, c’est à l’inverse le déficit de moyens humains pour instruire ces aides, combiné au choix d’une libéralisation de l’accompagnement des ménages, qui explique cet engorgement.

En effet, de nouvelles aides ont été mises en place, début 2024, pour multiplier rapidement par trois à quatre les rénovations d’ampleur de maisons. La dynamique prévue par les expériences locales ayant proposé des aides renforcées similaires est au rendez-vous, mais les moyens humains pour instruire ces projets de travaux supplémentaires n’ont étrangement pas été engagés par l’Etat.

De plus, le choix d’ouvrir l’accompagnement des ménages pour ces travaux complexes à des structures qui ne sont pas déjà partenaires de l’Etat et des collectivités locales a, sans surprise, attiré de nombreux fraudeurs. Car, sans contrôle indépendant des entreprises de travaux, les fraudes augmentent d’autant plus que les taux de subventions sont élevés, comme observé lors des débuts du photovoltaïque, et plus récemment avec les combles et chaudières « à 1 euro » ou, à une autre échelle, avec le Superbonus italien. Cette multiplication des dossiers frauduleux nécessitant des contrôles plus approfondis avant d’engager les subventions, les délais d’instruction s’étendent encore davantage.

▻https://archive.ph/qFR44

#BTP #écologie_capitaliste #logement

MaPrimeRénov’ : comment l’Etat a fragilisé le dispositif en changeant les règles et en réduisant son budget
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/06/25/maprimerenov-comment-l-etat-a-fragilise-le-dispositif-en-changeant-les-regle

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En 2025, un nouveau type de fraude voit le jour. Elle s’est développée à l’occasion d’une réforme des aides, qui oblige les candidats à la rénovation globale à avoir recours à un tiers de confiance, appelé « Mon accompagnateur Rénov’ » (MAR). Parmi les 1 600 MAR agréés par l’Etat, une centaine de ces structures sont aujourd’hui suspectées d’avoir déposé 16 000 dossiers douteux (devis survitaminés, usurpations d’identité, audits énergétiques manipulés, collusions avec des entreprises de travaux).

Ces arguments pour justifier la suspension de MaPrimeRénov’ peinent toutefois à convaincre. « La fraude, c’est le sujet qu’on nous ressert tout le temps pour tuer le dispositif, s’agace un proche du gouvernement. La vérité est qu’on a fermé le guichet MaPrimeRénov’ pour des raisons budgétaires. » De fait, le ministère du logement n’avait pas demandé la mise sur pause de la machine à rénover les logements. Il a été mis devant le fait accompli par Bercy, qui, obnubilé par l’atteinte des objectifs de réduction du déficit public, a repris la main sur un programme jugé trop coûteux.

[...]

Dans un premier temps, le budget suit. La rénovation globale est encouragée et Mon accompagnateur Rénov’ devient obligatoire pour les dossiers les plus importants à compter du 1er janvier 2024. Mais de MAR, il n’y en a pas. Ou si peu. « Je fais tout ce qu’on me dit, je forme mes salariés à l’étanchéité à l’air, à la migration de la vapeur d’eau dans les parois, et, derrière, ça ne suit pas », déplore Matthias Marsollier, charpentier et spécialiste de l’isolation biosourcée, à Chalonnes-sur-Loire (Maine-et-Loire), contraint, faute de MAR, de suspendre la moitié de son activité.

« Il n’y a vraiment aucune solution, à part patienter »
La filière ne suit pas, elle tarde à se structurer. Les artisans labellisés « reconnu garant de l’environnement » (RGE), incontournables pour bénéficier des aides publiques, ne sont pas assez nombreux, et les organisations professionnelles préfèrent, à la rénovation d’ampleur, les monogestes, qui sont plus rentables et ne bousculent pas les habitudes de travail.

Terricide. Sagesse ancestrale pour un monde alterNATIF

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Moira Millán dénonce le Terricide : l’extermination de toute forme de vie et de transmission.
Moira Millán, militante indigène mapuche d’Argentine, a vu ses terres pillées et son peuple violenté par les gouvernements chilien et argentin. Dans ce manifeste, elle écrit sur le Terricide, concept qu’elle a inventé et qui va au-delà de l’écocide puisqu’il inclut non seulement la destruction de la terre, mais également celle de tous les êtres vivants ainsi que toute possibilité de transmission des cultures autochtones. Leader du Mouvement des Femmes et des Diversités Indigènes pour le Bien Vivre, elle propose une pensée décoloniale d’avenir menant à la solidarité et à l’autonomie pour les peuples opprimés. S’appuyant sur sa propre expérience ainsi que sur des témoignages recueillis au long de ses voyages, l’autrice décrit la lutte et les revendications des communautés telluriques, mais aussi leurs traditions, en lien étroit avec la spiritualité et l’attachement à la terre.
Dans cet essai poignant, Moira Millán nous invite à une révolution de la pensée ainsi que de nos modèles sociaux, économiques et politiques, promouvant une nouvelle ontologie de l’humain fondée sur d’autres manières d’habiter la terre.

▻https://www.desfemmes.fr/essai/terricide

#Moira_Millan #peuples_autochtones #livre

Une autre émission récente de France Culture, littéraire celle-ci, sur la forêt Lacandone et le site de Bonampak.
Mexique : de l‘exploration au pillage, avec Laetitia Bianchi
▻https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/le-book-club/mexique-de-l-exploration-au-pillage-avec-laetitia-bianchi-1029560

Dans son récit en forme d’enquête, notre invitée Laetitia Bianchi remonte le fil de l’histoire du site maya de Bonampak, au Mexique, célèbre pour ses fresques. Elle y examine la disparition progressive de la culture maya et la dévastation de la forêt par des explorateurs devenus exploitants.

« Un Lacandon aux longs cheveux noirs, debout sur sa pirogue, vêtu d’une tunique blanche, creusant la transparence émeraude de la rivière d’une pagaie en bois. MÉXICO AUTÉNTICO. BONAMPAK. CHIAPAS. C’est peut-être le jour où j’ai vu, à l’aéroport de Mexico, sur un écran géant, cette publicité pour une agence de voyages, ce fantasme pour touriste en quête de bons sauvages, que ce livre est né. Un Lacandon ! Bonampak ! Authentique ! Vrai de vrai, à portée de main ! À portée de notre monde, à portée de nos yeux, là, pour nous, pour vous ! Et à ces visiteurs d’un jour qui achèteraient un petit jaguar en bois, il n’était donné qu’une image. Il n’était donné que le mensonge. »

Mexique : un défenseur des peuples indigènes à la tête de la Cour suprême
▻https://www.leshumanites-media.com/post/mexique-un-défenseur-des-peuples-indigènes-à-la-tête-de-la-cour-

Le prochain président de la Cour suprême (la plus haute instance judiciaire au #Mexique) sera Hugo Aguilar Ortiz (photo en tête d’article). Avocat d’origine mixteque, né en 1973 dans la région de #Oaxaca, il s’est distingué comme défenseur des droits des peuples autochtones : ancien avocat de l’Armée zapatiste de libération nationale (#EZLN), il a représenté plus de 25 communautés indigènes dans des litiges fonciers et politiques entre 1996 et 2010, obtenant des précédents importants devant les tribunaux locaux et fédéraux. Il a occupé le poste de coordinateur national des droits des peuples indigènes à l’Institut National des Peuples Indigènes (INPI), et a également travaillé comme consultant pour le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme.

#Amérique_latine

Palestinian oral history map

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This platform allows you to navigate geographically and chronologically through the #Palestinian_Oral_History_Archive (#POHA), an archive of over one thousand hours of interviews with Palestinians who lived through the Nakba, hosted by the American University of Beirut (AUB).

►https://libraries.aub.edu.lb/poha-viewer/map/en

Counter-Mapping the Archive

Tell us about your project. What times, places, and topics does your work cover?

My research concerns mapping and counter-mapping in Palestine, from British and Zionist (later Israeli) mapping to Palestinian and anti-Zionist counter-mapping. I have two main objectives in my work: to analyze the relationship of mapping and power in (and of) Palestine; and to assess the potential of counter-mapping as part of a project of decolonization.

The Palestinian condition is such that any map is treated by Palestinians as a dubious object, capable of deceit. Maps represent more than just a physical image of place. They possess agency and should be read as texts just like paintings, theatre, film, television, and music; they speak of the world, disclosing and realising manifold spatial relations.[1] It follows, then, that a range of approaches are needed to make sense of maps. My work, as a policy fellow at Al-Shabaka; the Palestinian Policy Network, as an artist and filmmaker, and currently as a doctoral candidate at Newcastle University, has been to interrogate the possibilities and limitations of cartography in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea between 1870 and 1967. I begin in 1870 because the first large-scale survey of this region was produced by the British-led Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1871-1877. The PEF produced by far the most precise and technologically sophisticated maps of the region to that point and paved the way for the British to assume colonial control over Palestine during the First World War, fifty years later. I stop at the Naksa of 1967 (the “setback,” or Six Day War as it’s known outside of Palestine) and the extension of the Israeli occupation to the entirety of historic Palestine as well as the Syrian Golan and the Egyptian Sinai.

Simultaneously, I analyze (and produce) counter-cartographies of Palestine. Often termed “counter-maps,” these are alternative maps which attempt to recognize the past, critique the present and (re)imagine the future. As such, they are not bound by a timeframe. I include “traditional” and digital maps as well oral or memory maps, literature and poetry, tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) and visual and performance art. The nature of this work means that I have combined traditional approaches such as archival research with the deliberate subversion of colonial artifacts. This includes my own counter-mapping efforts through poetry, visual art, and documentary film – such as my 2021 experimental short, The Place That is Ours, co-directed with Dorothy Allen-Pickard (figure 1).

https://kms.jadaliyya.com/Content/uploads/countermappingone.png

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has, in different ways, transformed the goals of my research, not least since many of the geographies depicted in historical maps of Gaza have been annihilated. But it has also called the specificity of decolonization in Palestine into question, because discourses around what constitutes decolonization in Palestine have irrevocably altered since October 2023.[2] Just as I seek to interrogate the archive – the ways it evades and conceals – so too have I found that my own research has become an archive of sorts: a survey of a landscape which has since been hit by a devastating earthquake. Making sense of this research, both the maps and the contextual frames that surround them, and asking what value (if any) they have is a painful preoccupation. These reflections are intended to contribute to a broader, more urgent, conversation around the politics of mapping Palestine and its role in the work of liberation in this current moment, when the very existence of Gaza is under threat.

How did you come to develop your project? What sources and analytics did you draw upon?

My interest in maps was sparked in 2017 when I used the iNakba app (since renamed iReturn) developed by Israeli anti-Zionist organisation Zochrot to find my destroyed village in the Tiberius region. The app’s interactive map has pins in the locations of 600 Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba of 1947-48 with otherwise obscure Google Maps and Waze coordinates. It also includes demographic information on each village (for instance settlement before and after 1948; what military operation, if any, destroyed it, and so on) in Hebrew, Arabic, and English – information synthesised from Walid Khalidi’s 1992 seminal work All that Remains.[3] I used the only image the app had–a grainy picture of the landscape with rolling hills and palm trees–to check we were in the right place (figure 2). The land did not lie, even after seven decades.

https://kms.jadaliyya.com/Content/uploads/countermapping2.png

In the years since, I have contemplated the clandestine cartographic practices I had to resort to in order to re-discover this place. Israeli maps deliberately obfuscate, omit, and ignore Palestinian localities, both populated and depopulated. Just as the Israeli state has been built on the ruins of Palestinian villages, towns, and cities, the Israeli map has been drawn to negate any Palestinian presence.[4] A map is well-suited for this task. The “duplicity” of maps, what critical cartographer J.B Harley calls their “slipperiness,” is the essence of cartographic representation.[5] This is in large part because mapmakers were, and in many ways, still are, presumed to be engaged in an “objective” or “scientific” project of knowledge creation.[6] From this perspective, maps are perfect, scaled representations of the world, based upon unbiased factual information and accurate measurements.[7] Scientific positivism has created the perception that maps are detached, neutral, and above all, accurate graphic representations of space.

But how does empiricism (and its discontents) apply to Palestine as a site of contemporary colonialism, where indigenous land is confiscated and contested, where any map is out of date almost as soon as it is issued, and where the map acts as a prophecy for colonial intent? Most significantly, in what ways does debunking cartographic myths act as an important case for any designs on material change towards a decolonized world? These questions are the backbone of my work. My hope is that this research produces new knowledge on historical and contemporary practices of mapping in Palestine and will make conceptual and empirical contributions to debates in critical cartography, settler colonialism and decolonization.

Can you tell us a bit about your methodology? What do you include in your maps and what do you leave out? Why? How do you see your methodological choices in connection with analytic and political questions?

The archive features prominently in my research; in many ways it acts as my point of departure, not because of what it contains, but because of what it does not. I have carried out research in eight archives across the UK and US including state, public, university, and personal collections and have found many overlaps, contradictions, and silences. But most maps of Palestine (along with their ephemera – explanatory notes, special volumes, sketches, registers, census data, field guides etc.) are held in archives broadly inaccessible to Palestinians. Whether in the colonial archives of London, New York, Washington DC, Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem, Palestinians have limited access to large parts of the history of their land and people, particularly as seen through the colonizer’s eyes.

The importance of archiving cannot be overstated, as Jaques Derrida and Eric Prenowitz remind us: “There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory. Effective democratization can always be measured by this essential criterion: the participation and the access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation.”[8] How can Palestinians understand their relationship to the land and imagine return without full access to the archive?

This is not unique to Palestinians. Indigenous peoples rarely have access to or exercise power over state archives, spaces often filled with documents and histories that instrumentalize the past to ensure settler presents and futures. Despite this marginalization of indigenous people and their relegation to a spectral presence in archival spaces, there has been a recent surge in the exploration and reclamation of archiving in indigenous, especially Palestinian, movements, many of these in the form of counter-cartographies. This might be understood as a reaction to the condition of exile. Beshara Doumani offers this interpretation: “I mention the attraction of archiving the present, not just the past, because Palestinians are still incapable of stopping the continued and accelerating erasure of the two greatest archives of all: the physical landscape, and the bonds of daily life that constitute an organic social formation.”[9]

It is perhaps for this reason that I find myself perennially drawn to the archive. The lacunae of the archive call for its subversion and reclamation. The archive has become a springboard for counter-mapping and alternative imaginaries. Saidiya Hartman, through her revolutionary “critical fabulations,” summarises this elegantly: “every historian of the multitude, the dispossessed, the subaltern, and the enslaved is forced to grapple with the power and authority of the archive and the limit it sets on what can be known, whose perspective matters, and who is endowed with the gravity and authority of historical actor.”[10]

In many cases, these limits are not only to be found in the contents of the archive – in my case, maps – but, importantly, also in the physical edifice of the archive itself. For instance, all maps of Palestine before and after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, some dating back centuries, are labelled “Israel” in the vast collection of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (a practice shared with the Royal Geographical Society archives in London). It is not uncommon to find a folder initially labelled “Palestine” crossed out and replaced with “Israel” (figure 3).

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Such a brash overwrite acts as a synecdoche of the broader Zionist imperial project and its logic of elimination. As Patrick Wolf reminds us, the settler’s impulse is first to erase and eliminate the native, and second, to erect a new colonial society on the stolen land.[11] The archive facilitates the former, the state (and its allies) execute the latter.

And yet, Palestinians insist on imagining and creating a reality beyond the present. Whether in Palestine or in exile, academics, mapmakers, organizers, and artists have learned to destabilize the archive to conceptualize alternative realities. In my own case, I have used technologies and practices including Photoshop, Risoprint (best described as digital screen printing), collage, embroidery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to reinscribe Palestine in cartographic terms. For instance, I geo-referenced a British colonial map from 1935 to depict villages destroyed in the Nakba (figure 4) and the location of Palestinian refugee camps across the region (figure 5).

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Since 1948, Palestinians have held onto the memory of destroyed homes and villages through the creation of atlases, maps, memoirs, visual art, books, oral histories, and websites. The right of return for Palestinian refugees and internally displaced people is not just a political solution but also the first step in a process of decolonization. Decolonizing maps involves acknowledging the experience of the colonial subjects (Palestinians) on the one hand, and documenting and exposing the colonial systems and structures (Zionist expansionism) on the other. It requires what David Harvey calls “the geographical imagination” – linking social imagination with a spatial-material consciousness.[12]

While there is valid criticism that counter-maps reproduce or embed existing exclusionary territorial and spatial practices, ongoing counter-mapping efforts demonstrate how Palestinians and their allies are creating a decolonizing cartography beyond simply (re)asserting lines on an existing map.[13] Rather, these efforts put personal and collective memories in spatial terms and incorporate them into a legal and political framework. This includes initiatives and projects such as Palestine Open Maps in 2018, the first open-source mapping project based around historical maps from the British Mandate period, as well as Decolonizing Art and Architecture Residency and Forensic Architecture. This is largely thanks to technological advances in GPS and GIS, which provide a foundation upon which to play, imagine and (re)build in spatial-cartographic terms.

Moreover, the work of artists enables Palestinians to oppose and subvert the hegemonic discourse and assert an alternative vision of liberation and return. Examples include works by Mona Hatoum (“Present Tense” 1996, “Bukhara” 2007), Larissa Sansour (“Nation Estate” 2012, “In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain” 2015) and Amir Zuabi (“Cold Floors” 2021). The current onslaught has seen a wealth of incisive work from younger artists and architects who are creating despite intense repression; see for instance Mariam Tolba (“Map of Palestinian Displacement: Behind Every Infographic is a Million Stories” 2024), Omar El Amine (“The Shahada of the Olive Tree” 2024), Zain Al-Sharaf Wahbeh (“The Image as an Archive” 2024), Tessnim Tolba (“Saharan Winds” 2024) and Nadine Fattaleh (“Materials of Solidarity” 2024 – image 6).

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Crucially, these initiatives are often reinforced by, or juxtaposed with, Palestinian efforts to return to destroyed villages in reality. For instance, the internally displaced inhabitants of villages including Iqrit, Al-Walaja, and Al-Araqib returned decades after their initial expulsion despite the risk of state violence and demolition, in addition to more coordinated events such as the Great March of Return in Gaza from 2018, the Unity Uprising in May 2021 or Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023. These actions lend credence to Edward Said’s assertion that geography may be “the art of war but can also be the art of resistance if there is a counter-map and a counter-strategy.”[14]

My work both within and beyond the archive examines maps not solely as visual artifacts of a bygone era; rather it is part of a search for blueprints. Clues remain for what a decolonized and liberated future for Palestine and its people could look like – and what beauty there is to find along the way.

▻https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46572/Counter-Mapping-the-Archive
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