Mapping and countermapping dispossession in Palestine

In their claim to distance from reality, maps seek power from representation. Maps are constituted by a particular set of practices that are enmeshed within wider social relations. Maps, then, are a powerful vantage point for understanding the geometries of power. Under settler colonialism, geography is constantly reshaped and reconfigured by expansionist and eliminatory logics. Such is the case in Palestine, where Israeli settler colonialism has fragmented the map of historic Palestine into messily separated archipelagos. As Palestinian geographies are constantly being reconfigured under Israeli settler colonialism, can maps catch up? How do we locate Palestine on the map? I take up these questions by focusing on the 1948 and 1967 Palestinian territories as two spatio-temporally differentiated locations of settler colonial spatial reconfiguration. Using a counter-map designed by Palestinian artist Haya Zaatry, I highlight the importance of counter-mapping in bringing into sharp relief the conjunctural layering of dispossession in Palestine. If dominant colonial maps are about the neat packaging of lived realities into dominant spatio-temporal demarcations, counter-maps are about highlighting the ghostly stories and embodied spatial practices and processes of living within and beyond such demarcations. Using counter-maps designed by Palestinian artists, I highlight the importance of counter-mapping in bringing into sharp relief the conjunctural layering of dispossession in Palestine. If dominant colonial maps are about the neat packaging of lived realities into dominant spatio-temporal demarcations, counter-maps are about highlighting the ghostly stories and embodied spatial practices and processes of living within and beyond such demarcations.image