Reimagining the cartographic nation: In praise of risk taking

Abstract

I read Rossetto and Lo Presti's article, ‘Reimagining the National Map’, as an invitation to develop what I call, following Eve Sedgwick, a reparative study of national cartographies. In this commentary, I enthusiastically support their call but also argue for the need to move from an appreciation of maps’ fundamental instability to a more daring engagement with the normative dimension of national mapping. Like many scholars working from a post-representational perspective, Rossetto and Lo Presti associate the fundamental dynamism and contingency of maps with (potential) positive social change and, more specifically, the development of multicultural national imaginaries. I suggest that these associations deserve further scrutiny and argue that change and ‘everydayness’ may offer a starting point, but not a basis for progressive national mappings. Finally, drawing on the thought-provoking examples presented by Rossetto and Lo Presti, I reflect on what principles and practices could guide a progressive national cartography of Italy in 2021.

Between hyperboles and litotes: The middle passage of everyday cartographic nationhood

“…organic vs voluntarist nationalism, constructivism vs determinism, ethnic vs civic nations, political vs cultural national ties, primordialism vs perennialism, antiquity vs modernity, and so on). As Boria (2022) usefully notes, the nation has often been addressed as a 'pre-packaged' category, not as 'a reality here and now' (Craib, 2022), which, we agree, cannot be fully comprehended without referring to its geo-historical contexts (Carraro, 2022;Craib, 2022). Yet, it is also too vivid and elusive, idealised and practised (Duggan, 2022;Rankin, 2022), conventional and constantly rebooted to not receive further attention and 'methodological eclecticism' (Boria, 2022) instead of being so easily abandoned.…”

“…the map as a powerful representation, the map as a political technology of the nation-state; the nation as a force of both homogenisation and classification) and felt the need to soften some of those paradigmatic arguments to make space for other methods, perspectives and subjects that help in diffracting the who of the nation. Perhaps we took the risk, as recognised by Carraro (2022), of being accused of naiveté or, more accurately put, as we claim in this last response, being litotic in using deliberate understatements to make a point. What is our point, then?…”

“…In a certain way, the interrogation of cartographic limits is linked to the interrogation of national limits (Rankin, 2022). To what extent can we imagine a progressive nation, given the ingrained and ‘viscous’ (Carraro, 2022) conservative meanings inexorably linked to the nation itself?…”

“…Thus, the first general idea that we can have concerning the ‘weight of praxis’ (Boria, 2022) involves considering maps as blind and deaf but able to let others (i.e. humans) see, touch and talk about something related, in our case, to national discourses, including the progressive values evidenced by Carraro (2022): ‘cross-Mediterranean solidarity, anti-racism, collective engagement with the principles of equality embedded in the Constitution, commitment to reckoning with the country's colonial history’. Maps and mapping can work and propagate (while moving themselves) different spatial aspirations for, with and against the nation.…”

“…Second, we enthusiastically endorse ‘the weight of praxis’ evoked by Boria (2022) to build on the idea that the work of imagination, even with the aspiration of creating more progressive cartographies, should always be grounded in specific national contexts and seen in the related material fractures and power dynamics. Lastly, to foresee a reparative study of national cartographies (Carraro, 2022; Rankin, 2022), we propose embarking on a middle passage of cartographic theory (swaying between hyperboles and litotes), in which doubt and hope, critique and affirmation, colonial past and anti-racism, hyper- and hypo-knowledge of maps, and their community of imaginations find equal rights to be analysed.…”