Counter-mapping

The term counter-mapping was first used by geographer Nancy Peluso in 1995 to describe how Indigenous communities in Indonesia created maps to challenge state claims to forest land. Since then, it has become a way for people around the world to reclaim space, document violence, and preserve memories outside of official narratives. Projects like The Decolonial Atlas share Indigenous-made and anti-colonial maps from across the globe—illustrating routes of migration, sacred places, language names, and sites of extraction. In Oklahoma, Laura Harjo's mapping with Mvskoke (Creek) communities centers Indigenous feminist futurity and collective memory. The Zuni Map Art Project blends land-based art with mapping to honor oral histories and ancestral geography. Counter-mapping asks who decides what a place means. It reminds us that every map carries a politic.