The Other Side of the Eco-Island: Exploring the Heuristic Potential of Inverse Cartography

Abstract Maps not only make spaces visible but also contribute to making certain spatial orders appear desirable, legitimate, or sustainable. This paper builds upon recent work on neopragmatic cartography as well as upon the concept of the inverse landscape and discusses the potential of inverse cartography as a heuristic operationalization of these considerations. To this end, the conceptual framework is extended by introducing the categories of the as-it-should-be landscape and the enabling landscape . As-it-should-be landscapes refer to socially privileged landscapes that are represented as desirable states of spatial order and are preferentially rendered visible within dominant spatial vocabularies. Enabling landscapes denote the material, infrastructural, and social conditions upon which the stabilization of such landscapes depends. The inverse landscape, in turn, directs attention to spatial areas and practices that remain only partially visible or are semantically devalued within the same spatial orders. Using the example of an educational map depicting an “eco-island,” the paper demonstrates how tensions between the as-it-should-be landscape, the enabling landscape, and the inverse landscape can be reconstructed cartographically. Inverse cartography is not conceived as a distinct method but rather as a heuristic perspective for analyzing regimes of visibility, selectivity, and legitimation. From a neopragmatist perspective, it seeks to sustain reflexive openness toward the contingency of spatial orders, the conditions upon which they depend, and the possibility of alternative descriptions.