Every year ASI awards seed money to promising interdisciplinary projects. "Decolonizing Perspectives on Land: Participatory Counter-Mapping in Mapuche Territory" is one of four ASI Seed Money winners 2025.
Participatory counter-mapping in Mapuche territory seeks to address the colonial legacy of conventional cartography, which has historically erased Indigenous ways of knowing and representing land. Conventional mapping has imposed rigid boundaries and reinforced an ontology that separates humans from nature, counter to most Indigenous cosmologies. By integrating Mapuche kimün (knowledge) and Az Mapu (territorial norms), this project reclaims narratives of territory and identity that have been obscured or erased by colonial practices. Through participatory methodologies such as community workshops, oral histories, and digital documentation, it centers Mapuche understandings of socionature, biodiversity, and sustainability while addressing the epistemic injustices perpetuated by colonial cartographies.
In Mapuche territories, extractivist projects like hydroelectric dams, wind farms, and monoculture plantations disrupt ecosystems, displace communities, and erode traditional practices that safeguard biodiversity. Despite these pressures, the Mapuche have demonstrated enduring resistance described as a "permanent rebellion" against colonialism and state-led violence. By documenting culturally and ecologically significant sites and creating counter-maps with the community, this project not only challenges colonial mappings of the past but also offers a tool for decolonial research practices, advancing environmental sciences by integrating Indigenous epistemologies. It seeks to inspire pathways toward more equitable and sustainable futures by bridging gaps between decolonial approaches, physical geography, and Indigenous cosmologies.
Research Team
- Mirja Schoderer, Assistant Professor, Environmental Policy Analysis, IVM (VU)
- Mario Torralba Viorreta, Assistant Professor, Environmental Geography, IVM (VU)
- Monserrat Vasquez, PhD Candidate, IVM (VU)
- Miguel Melin Pehuen, Osvaldo Curaqueo Pichihueche-, Institute for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies, Universidad de la Frontera, Chile