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Literature and Cartography: Theories, Histories, Genres, edited by Anders Engberg-Pedersen

graphically visible a particular and partial version of ‘Colombia’. Jordana Dym’s chapter on the geo-body and national cartography of Guatemala from 1820 to 2010 shows how processes of state mapping and the production and dissemination of national atlases influenced national territorial identity for an independent Guatemala in which the complex and diverse spaces of creole and indigenous peoples were re-mapped into the national space. ‘Maya and national Guatemala were thus, cartographically, united’, and indigenous territorial claims were recognized not as independent with their own forms of spatial understanding, but as interior bounded spaces within the frame of the national map. The subsequent four chapters turn to the decolonization of British imperial territories: the Gold Coast, Egypt, India and South Africa. Jamie McGowan’s study of the mapping programmes of the Gold Coast considers the role of mapmakers in the creation and reproduction of forms of colonial governmentality. The chapter focuses on African surveyors and draftsmen in colonial mapping projects, on their training in scientific mapping techniques, and on the ways in which after independence these technical approaches to mapping and their attendant assumptions had the effect of reproducing colonial inheritances and assumptions about the apolitical nature of their work. Karen Culcasi’s chapter similarly shows how Egypt was cartographically constructed after independence in 1922 and how Western cartographic standards and practices were reproduced in the process. The sheer variety of scales at which mapping was carried out drove the idea of Egypt into even the smallest of interior spaces to such a degree that ‘the colonization of mapping practices and Western representations of space are so ubiquitous that the influence of indigenous mapping today is feeble’. The legacy of colonial and Western mapping practices in shaping the post-colonial geo-body is also the focus of Sumathi Ramaswamy’s essay on cartography and creativity in the mapping of India. Ramaswamy begins the chapter with the question: ‘Is there an inescapable hegemony of the cartographic line ushered in by the modern science of mapping?’ In endeavouring to answer that question she turns to artists from the subcontinent whose work—very much in line with the broader project of Indian subaltern studies—destabilizes the geo-coded national space in favour of ‘alternative contours of belonging’ and the writing of histories ‘from below’. The result is a fascinating reading of the ways in which artists, particularly female artists, offer another answer to Brian Harley’s often quoted claim that ‘maps are preeminently a language of power, not of protest’. Instead, Ramaswamy concludes that it has been the female artist who—operating outside the canon of scientific cartography—has offered alternative visions and other possible contours, lines and lives. Thomas Basset in his chapter focuses on the quotidian role of commercial road maps in shaping national identities in South Africa. Under apartheid, such maps were almost entirely produced in the traditions of European cartographers. They were in English and Afrikaans, and they privileged white areas and settlements over the ‘locations’ and lives of black residents who were largely made invisible on the maps of ‘white’ South Africa while being ‘located’ on the map in tribal bantustans or ‘homelands’. Basset asks, did these apartheid-era mapping practices change after 1994 with the production of road maps in post-apartheid South Africa? He shows how post-apartheid mapping practices have certainly altered as commercial mapping companies have reflected the changing political landscapes. Maps now identify black townships, African place-names and spellings are more common, and street renaming has forced a widespread revision of city street maps. But he also shows how, in the face of limited change, ongoing struggles over space have also drawn artists and activists into cartography and counter-cartography in their efforts to confront deep spatial inequalities and build a more inclusive South Africa. Decolonizing the Map wonderfully traces the transition from colonial to independent states and the emergence of national mapping traditions and cartographic institutions. The volume shows well how these processes are highly contested, complex and, at times, conflicted as newly independent state actors, under a diverse array of conditions, have struggled to map their particular futures. At every turn, the reader is asked to think much more carefully about the ways in which coloniality and modernity provide opportunities and constraints on the ever challenging project of building new political identities, particularly when they are constructed through the lens of the national territorial state.