National Maps, Digitalisation and Neoliberal Cartographies - Radcliffe

National maps, digitalisation and
neoliberal cartographies: transforming

nation-state practices and symbols
in postcolonial Ecuador
Sarah A Radcliffe
The paper explores the connection between computerised techniques of mapping and
the role of maps in modern nationhood, interrogating the ways that maps are natura-
lised and deployed in postcolonial neoliberal statecraft. A case study of Ecuador dem-
onstrates how the relationship between cartography and the nation-state is being both
altered and reaffirmed by new mapping practices and institutional processes. Despite
neoliberalising moves to decentre state cartographers and the technological advances
supporting the proliferation of national maps and map-makers, Ecuadorian cartogra-
phies are still authorised by the nation-state, as explored in relation to spatial informa-
tion about the country, and in relation to the processes of land-titling. Under neoliberal
governance and with advanced mapping techniques, land-titling produces small territo-
ries that replicate – in miniature – the jigsaw-like and modular quality of national terri-
tories. As such, mappings of individual private properties produce the reality of
neoliberal statecraft.
key words cartography nation-state Latin America France neoliberalism land-

titling development
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EN

email: sar23@cam.ac.uk
revised manuscript received 23 June 2009
science, this paper examines how the mapping of

Introduction
national space is bound up with and co-constitutes
Geography and mapping are now widely recogni- statehood and national identity. National maps
sed to comprise a tool in statecraft (Anderson 1991; exert a powerful hold over Ecuador’s understand-
Hoosen 1994; Craib 2004). Maps’ social constructed- ings of development and statehood, despite neolib-
ness – and the naturalisation of their production – eral reforms and the digitalisation of geographical
is now a commonplace in critical geography and information. Although states tend to create distinc-
cartography (Harley 2001; Pickles 2004). However, tive geographical disciplines within their borders,
the connection between contemporary processes of the ways in which they do so and the global net-
mapping and maps’ naturalisation in modern works they appropriate ⁄ are appropriated by, speak
nationhood – that is, maps of national territory rep- to the possibility of a critical account of nationalist
resented in outline without longitude, geophysical mapping that goes beyond a placeless disciplinary
features or neighbouring countries, yet still ‘read’ as history, or an account of nation-states’ instrumental
referring to national territory and evoking national use of geography (Livingstone 1992; Harley 2001;
sentiment (Anderson 1991) – has attracted surpris- Hoosen 1994).
ingly little attention (important exceptions are When conceived as a science, geography engages
Hoosen 1994; Sparke 2005). Drawing on critical in the organisation of institutions such as a state
mapping studies and histories of geography as a through its mapping activities, personnel and
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

ISSN 0020-2754 2009 The Author.
Journal compilation Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2009
National maps, digitalisation and neoliberal cartographies 427
institutions around claims to knowledge by differ- a reified apparatus’ while simultaneously conceal-
entiating between that which is represented and ing its precariousness (Sparke 2005, 10). Yet both
named, and what is excluded (Harley 2001). geography and postcolonial nation-states continue
Accordingly, maps and map-makers work within a to be continuously transformed, not least by
certain horizon of possibilities framed conceptually changes in the forms of political and economic
and institutionally by (largely) state institutions governance, the shifting nature of national identi-
precisely in order to establish the nation-state and ties, and the ongoing proliferation of geographical
its territory as self-evident, hegemonic and enduring. technologies. Connections between mapping and
Teodoro Wolf’s nineteenth-century map of inde- national geographies are neither static nor com-
pendent Ecuador, for instance, represented a unitary pletely free-floating, suggesting the need for a
territory, just as it silenced the profound regionalist contextualised analysis of geography’s practices,
tensions threatening to pull the newborn republic power and knowledges.
apart (Padrón 1998; also Deler 1981). Poststructural- Analytically, cartography has been re-cast ‘as a
ist accounts of national geographies ⁄ geographers broad set of spatial practices’ beyond professional
that include the documentation and analysis of cartographers and their institutions (Kitchen and
interweaving institutions, actors and techniques of Dodge 2007, 337). Although recognising that critical
national mapping assist our understanding of the geographical studies of mapping are informed by
explicit and implicit factors behind mapping’s selec- various theoretical and epistemological traditions,3
tive uses and forms. Such approaches resonate with my starting point in this paper is on the practice-
critical geographical approaches that view cartogra- based approaches to mapping (Kitchen and Dodge
phy ‘as processual rather than representational . . . 2007; Kitchen 2008) as a route into understanding
emerging through practices (embodied, social, tech- the shifting nature of postcolonial statehood. In line
nical)’ (Kitchen and Dodge 2007, 331). Mapping with the ethnographic methods used, I focus here
practices depend upon learned knowledge and on how the practices of actors and institutions con-
skills for their production and in their reading as tinuously cite previous maps, whereby particular
‘maps are interpreted, translated and made to do geographical practices and their cartographic
work’ (Kitchen and Dodge 2007, 335; also Dodge results become hegemonic through repetition. Con-
et al 2008; Crampton 2009). The paper offers an ceiving of maps’ power in terms of how they relate
account of how national representation and ‘scien- to hegemonic relations, this paper also traces how
tific’ criteria become entangled with rapidly shifting new practices and agendas reorient the ties
political economic and technological change to pro- between national maps and state power, arising as
duce new cartographic practices and meanings.1 they do out of the contested performative naturali-
As a set of practices that incrementally accumulate sation and slippages associated with cartographic
particular types of spatially organised knowledge practices. What happens in a specific nation-state
as the basis for the nation-state’s power–knowledge when ‘spatial practices’ are received and utilised
relations, geography emerged during the nine- by a group of actors and institutions beyond the
teenth century as an increasingly disciplined and reach of state-based cartographic institutions?
disciplinary enterprise. In postcolonial states, maps Ecuador’s history of geography over the past two
of not-quite national territories could be drawn decades points to a specific shift in the configura-
and distributed in struggles for independence as tion of technical, institutional and embodied rela-
an anticipatory claim to colonial and then postcolo- tions between professional (military, state)
nial territorial sovereignty (Anderson 1991, 173–8; geographies and citizens, between state and nation.
Craib 2000; Harley 1992; Scott 2006).2 In Latin Described as ‘a boom in geography’ and informed
America, early nineteenth-century independence by a changing sense of geography’s practices, pur-
entailed the establishment of geography as a disci- poses and users, a shift has occurred in the produc-
pline involving a set of individual and institutiona- tion and representations of national maps.
lised actors, whose outputs were used to underpin However, maps have retained the power to silence ⁄
state rule as well as inculcate national imaginative make visible and remain couched in terms of
geographies in citizens’ minds (on Latin America, territorial and cartographic nationalism. Under-
see Escudé 1988; Escolar et al. 1994; Radcliffe 2001; standing this context requires a postcolonial discus-
Craib 2004). By means of their abstractions, sion of democratisation and the concomitant
national maps ‘help create the effect of the state as reduction in military state power, international

428 Sarah A Radcliffe
development cooperation, and changing geographi-
cal tools (including GPS and GIS [for all acronyms,
Maps as logo in a postcolonial frame
see Table I]).4 Every national establishment of geography is
The paper is structured as follows. The first sec- unique and reflects place-specific combinations of
tion places the core Ecuadorian understandings of knowledge, power and mapping. To provide the
geographical practices and knowledge in an histori- necessary context for the South American republic
cal postcolonial context. Examining the global of Ecuador, this section sketches out the key
genealogies impacting on national map production, postcolonial connections between geographical
it traces the important role of French geographers practices, statehood and (global) geographical
in the establishment of late twentieth-century Ecu- knowledge. Ecuadorian geography and its co-con-
adorian geography. Section two then outlines the stitution with nationhood are tied intimately with
state-based constitution of Ecuadorian national colonial and postcolonial institutions and practices.
mapping as a discipline, highlighting the entangle- Casting the net to include what is ‘beyond’ the
ment of geographical knowledges with techniques national map entails looking at the state-effect in a
of statehood, particularly the military. The third global context, examining how national maps came
section documents the rise of computer-based geo- into being as the product of the particular univer-
graphical information and cartography associated salism and specific entanglements of colonial
with geographical information systems (GIS) in the modernity (Castro Gómez 1999). In this sense,
political context of neoliberal state reforms. Focus- national maps do not pertain exclusively to nation-
ing on geographical knowledge and statecraft in states, being produced as the outcome of colonial
the arena of national development, the final part underpinnings as well as the ‘broader configura-
examines how abstractions associated with national tion of the use of information in society’ (Pickles
mapping are endlessly re-worked, and – in the pro- 1995, vii). Rethinking Latin American specificity in
cess of land-titling practices – reduced to the scale relation to the world thus raises questions about
of individual (neoliberalised) property holdings. how geographies and national maps came together
Finally, conclusions are drawn regarding the in a specific conjuncture (Sánchez Ramos and Sosa
abstraction of state power through national maps Elı́zaga 2004).
in the era of geo-graphics5 in the service of neolib- Through the nineteenth century, Ecuador’s territo-
eral nationalism. rial integrity and consolidation as an independent
Table I Acronyms used in the paper
Acronym Full name in Spanish ⁄ French Full name in English
CEPEIGE Centro Panamericano de Estudios e Pan-American Centre for Geographical

Investigaciones Geográficos Study and Research
CLIRSEN Centro de Levantamientos Integrados de Centre for Integrated Remote Sensing
Recursos Naturales por Sensores Remotos Surveys of Natural Resources
ESPE Escuela Superior Politécnica del Ejército Army Advanced Polytechnic School
FEPP Fondo Ecuatoriano Populorum Progressio Ecuadorian Fund ‘for the progress of the people’
GIS n⁄a Geographical Information System
GPS n⁄a Global Positioning System
IGM Instituto Geográfico Militar Geographical Military Institute
IPGH Instituto Panamericano de Geografı́a e Historia Pan-American Institute of
Geography and History
IRD Institut de Recherche pour le Développement Institute for Development Research
NGO n⁄a Non-Governmental Organisation
ORSC Office de la Recherche Scientifique Coloniale Office of Scientific Colonial Research
ORSTOM Office de la Recherche Scientifique Office of Scientific and Technical Research Overseas
et Technique d’Outre-Mer
SIGAGRO [no direct name – SIG=GIS, Ministry of Agriculture Geographical
AGRO=Ministerio de Agricultura] Information Service
SIISE Sistema Integrado de Indicadores Integrated System of Social Indicators of Ecuador
Sociales del Ecuador

republic relied upon geographical imaginations of tutionalisation of a scientific agenda with regard to
its spatial extent and content, as well as on the colonial – and increasingly other developing world
notion of geographical expertise being deployed in contexts – set in train a pattern of engagement
the functions of statecraft (Radcliffe 2001). After between science – including geography – and
independence from Spain in the early nineteenth research interests that were to come to impact
century, it was France and its imperial ambitions upon Ecuador into the twenty-first century. French
and notions of science and development that most interest in the connection between geography, sci-
profoundly shaped Ecuadorian geography and entific knowledge and trusteeship would, over
nationhood through to the present day.6 The status time, be articulated as an issue of development,
awarded to geography as a scientific tool of state- geo-informatics7 and geography.
craft reflects colonial and postcolonial institutions At the end of the Second World War, the French
and practices. French colonial interest in Latin government decided to create a scientific institute
America was concerned primarily with forging a for the development of its colonial empire, a deci-
political tie with what it called ‘fellow Latins’ – sion that gave rise to the Office of Scientific Colo-
that is, European-descent populations. In the sec- nial Research in 1943, subsequently re-founded as
ond half of the nineteenth century, France’s civilis- the Office of Scientific and Technical Research
ing mission in the global South was bolstered by Overseas (ORSTOM) (Bowd and Clayton 2005, 319;
its ideological insistence on its latinitée or Latin- Feller 2006). In a climate of post-war period accusa-
ness and its ‘natural’ connection with Latin peoples tions that it was doing too little for its colonies’
elsewhere. As well as restating racial ideologies, economic development, France established institu-
the concept of latinitée provided an intellectual and tions such as ORSTOM to address these problems
state discourse that was deployed to counter US (Bowd and Clayton 2005). ORSTOM staff were
expansionism in Latin America (Mignolo 2005, recruited from the French colonies, such as Alain
58–9; Heffernan 1994, 39). Adopting a position as Georges Paul Crosnier who moved from national
‘trustee of the destinies of all the Latin nations on service and work in Algeria to ORSTOM offices in
the two continents’ of Europe and Latin America, Madagascar and the Congo before returning to
France projected itself both as a geopolitical heavy- France. Here is not the place for a history of French
weight and as a benign intervening force in poor colonial interest in science, but a brief sketch of
countries’ development (Mignolo 2005, 79; on trust- institutions and (post-)colonial geographies impact-
eeship, see Power 2003). ing upon Ecuadorian geographies is significant for
The mutual constitution of geography and colo- explaining how map-making was constituted as a
nialism in France was expressed through a plan- series of specific practices and social relations
ning approach that ‘accompanied the alteration, around a complex entanglement of trusteeship,
exploitation and management of [French] colonies’ development ‘cooperation’ and technological mod-
(Soubeyran 1994, 251). At a time when science was ernisation (cf. Martins 2007 on Brazil).
believed to underpin colonialism’s accomplish- The French research and technology organisation
ment, pure sciences were pursued in addition to ORSTOM was established in the post-war years as
applied sciences such as colonial meteorology, car- the agency for tropical countries’ research, particu-
tography and geography as well as medicine, larly in geography and its applications across rural
energy, forestry and agriculture (Osborne 2005, 86). and urban development. France’s interest in applied
Critical of Vidal de la Blache’s emergent regional tropical geography has since the mid-twentieth
geographies approach, the geographical arguments century co-constituted Ecuadorian geo-graphics.
coming from French geographers working overseas Working in ten Central and South American coun-
were concerned with more systematic comparative tries, ORSTOM established a mission in Ecuador in
work and scientific relativism as the basis of intel- 1974 working with the Ministry of Agriculture to
lectual enquiry (Soubeyran 1994, 251–5). Moreover, explore ‘geographical milieux in all their aspects’
these ideas were expressed in the context of territo- and specifically to conduct ‘an inventory of renew-
rial planning and management, perhaps linked to able natural resources’ (Deler et al. 1983, no page).
geography’s concern with spatial abstraction and Although Ecuador’s economy relied heavily on agri-
territorial ordering. Just as the expansion of French culture, it had never carried out such an extensive
science and anthropology had been possible in the or scientific overview of its resources. Geographer
arena of territorial control overseas, so too the insti- Michel Portais oversaw the project, drawing on

previous French work in Madagascar (Deler et al. founded upon ongoing racial exclusions, denial of
1983). The programme thus represents an example subaltern agency and the policing of professional-
of a postcolonial national inventory whose state ism,9 reaching its apogee in the World Bank pro-
effect relies upon the particularity of (Spanish then ject to demarcate Afro-Colombian communal
French) coloniality (Mignolo 2005). Development- lands, despite the fact that Afro-Colombians had
related research continued in soil science, rural ‘no tradition of expressing political demands in
studies, ecosystem biology and geography. the form of ethnic or territorial claims’ (Offen
Ecuadorian geographical knowledges and dis- 2003, 46). Mapping practices and geographical
courses of national development8 arose from and knowledges utilised by poor farmers, indigenous
were influenced by postcolonial institutionality and and black groups and their advocates are repeat-
the complex inter-regional flows of knowledge and edly marginalised (Radcliffe 2009). If maps are
science (Livingstone 1992). In the following quote, reliant on actors in a specific space and time to
the Ecuadorian state institutions using geography mobilise their potential effects (Kitchen and
(all discussed in Section II) are linked to the French Dodge 2007, 334), the context within which they
postcolonial geographical knowledges: do so entangles embedded histories of exclusion.
Among Ecuadorian geographers with computer-
The project of the [book] Basic Geography of Ecuador was
born in the following reflection: geographical-type
based and geo-informatics skills, the overwhelm-
research has seen a particular commotion in the country ing majority are mestizo and white, descendants
in recent years (the Geographical Military Institute’s of ‘Latin’ allies of French colonial expansionism
abundant cartographic production, ORSTOM’s invalu- in the region, while only a handful are indige-
able contributions, the creation of the Pan-American nous.10 By engaging in scientific enterprises
Centre for Geographical Study and Research . . . the within the horizon of trusteeship and geopolitical
solid presence of the Pan-American Institute of Geogra- contests, the ORSTOM interlocked with the politi-
phy and History) . . . (Deler et al. 1983, no page) cal power of creole-mestizo elites in Latin America
Changing its name in 1988, ORSTOM became the and erased political projects associated with
Institute for Development Research (IRD) and con- indigenous and Afro-Latin populations (Mignolo
tinued to shape Ecuadorian geographical practices 2005, 79).11
around GIS and geo-informatics. As French devel- ‘Beyond’ Ecuador’s national maps, a far-reaching
opment policy began to promote emergent internet web of connections and power relations shape how
and communication technology from the late 1990s, maps are produced, to what standards and in what
the French development directorate provided fund- comparative frameworks. The politics of institu-
ing for institutions in selected developing countries tionalised and embodied geographical knowledge
(Humbaire 2000). ORSTOM-IRD embodied a spe- in Ecuador thus relates directly to the ways in
cific French legacy of social and physical sciences which (colonial–postcolonial) French geographical
through colonially-oriented research institutions science forged its transfer of geographical know-
and scholarly networks that use comparative ledge and set priorities.
frameworks across the global South to engage and
constitute geographical – and other – knowledges. Geography as a state tool: from military
The legacy of such (post)colonial articulations maps to subcontracting cartography
of geopolitics and science is the maintenance of
specific ways of comprehending, mapping, organ- Reflecting a much broader entanglement of geog-
ising and analysing territory. Geographers have raphy as a discipline with the military (Barnes
extensively documented the erasure of indigenous 2008), Ecuadorian geographies were from the late
topographic, cosmological and geographical nineteenth century institutionalised and peopled
knowledges through conquest and subsequent via military establishments (see Radcliffe 2001).
national programmes to create and settle ‘empty Since its foundation by the state in the 1920s,
lands’ (e.g. Harley 1992; Scott 2006). Combined Ecuador’s Geographical Military Institute (hereafter
with the continued misreading and utilitarian IGM) established a claim to be the purveyor of
re-articulation of indigenous and black territories geographical knowledge in national projects for sov-
in Latin America by commercial, state and devel- ereignty, territorial organisation and development.
opment interests, these spatial abstractions are Its authority rested upon its use of international

scientific tools and approaches that combined with Thus, the IGM and its Geographical Department
its strong bureaucratic infrastructure and wider represent a central hub around which maps, geo-
political power to provide a ‘value-free’ spatial graphical practices and geographers have circu-
tool (Radcliffe 1996 2001; Radcliffe and Westwood lated for most of the twentieth century. The
1996). The IGM was also the only institution in practices, institutions and discourses of mapping in
the country legally authorised to create national Ecuador remain entangled with military know-
maps. The 1978 National Cartography Law (Ley de ledges, cartographic techniques and priorities.
Cartografı́a Nacional, clarified in a 1991 regulation) Accompanying IGM’s cartographic power is a
established the rules for national maps’ produc- network of interconnected state institutions
tion, standards and distribution, whereby the through which geographical and cartographic
IGM was responsible for ‘planning, organising, knowledge became embodied in successive genera-
directing, coordinating, executing, approving and tions of geographers. A specialist training school,
controlling the activities pursuant to the elabora- again part of the military establishment, is the
tion of national cartography and the archive of Army Advanced Polytechnic School (hereafter
the country’s geography and cartographic data’. ESPE). Highly significant in the professionalisation
The law awards IGM authority to decide the dis- of national mapping, the Army Technical School is
tinction between appropriate and inappropriate open to military and civilian students for high-level
cartographic productions. Subordinated to military training in engineering and geography.14 Founded
command, the IGM director must be an engineer, like the IGM in the 1920s and with growing pres-
preferably a geographical engineer, while the sub- tige regarding its expertise in statistics and model-
director is a Ministry of Defence-appointed colonel ling, the Polytechnic holds an authoritative position
trained in geography. in training professional geographers, so-called ‘geo-
IGM focuses on what it terms ‘basic cartogra- graphical engineers’, for technical roles especially
phy’ (interview and personal communications in cartography and geodesy. As a key institutional
with IGM staff 2007). Largely civilian cartogra- broker in the mapping and statistics field, it offers
phers work on a series of map sheets covering the masters courses using GIS and geographical tools
entire national territory at a scale of 1:50 000 and under the rubrics of geography and environment,
other scales. The Ecuadorian airforce provides the and statistics. In order to transmit the latest map-
flights from which aerial photos are derived.12 ping techniques, the IGM provides ESPE professors
The Institute’s normalisation department oversees and students with the latest information and soft-
non-IGM publications to ensure that national ware.15 Polytechnic graduates move into a large
maps are correct and accurate.13 For instance, it number of civil service and military positions
approved the geographical engineer Major Fran- where mapping skills are prioritised. Currently in
cisco Sampedro’s atlas, which was then approved IGM’s Geographical Division, the majority of staff
by the Ministry of Education as suitable for teach- are ESPE graduates, joined by two graduate geog-
ing (Sampedro 1990). Information for basic cartographers from the Catholic University geography
raphy comes in digitalised form from aerial department (personal communication IGM July
photos, which are processed according to the 2007). The life history of one IGM staff member
international standards. One dimension of its exemplifies the IGM’s close connection with ESPE.
authority as the final arbiter and most professional Now in his thirties, Ramón (a pseudonym) trained
cartographic body relies upon its continuous at ESPE before joining the IGM basic national car-
alignment with, and maintenance of, these interna- tography team, working also on thematic digital
tional standards. map projects concerned with vegetation and mili-
tary movement.16 Other ESPE graduates include
Listen, we are not talking simply of cartography but we
are talking of real data . . . These data are supported by
staff in the capital city Quito’s mapping depart-
standards, all the support . . . and all the data produc- ment (see below), and the civil servant charged
tion . . . Basically, the standard that applies is the form with statistical analysis and mapping of indigenous
in which the information, in this case geographical, is populations.
going to be in the same language whichever country or Also in Ecuador’s institutional landscape of
whichever cartography producer is involved; they are geographical professionals and institutions lies a
inter-operable and compatible with other formats. lesser rank of agencies. Established in 1977 under
(interview Luis Ramos 2008)

military-related legislation ‘to create an inventory tific application of geographical practices has set
of natural resources at the national level and make the bar and discursive field for many profes-
possible their optimum administration’ is the Cen- sional geographers in Ecuador who work almost
tre for Integrated Remote Sensing Surveys of Natu- exclusively to the ‘international’ standards of geo-
ral Resources (hereafter CLIRSEN). Charged with graphics and modern cartography. Under the dis-
collecting and analysing remote sensing informa- course of neoliberal ‘modernisation’ (Conaghan
tion, from 1982 it took over the running of the and Malloy 1994),20 the IGM has experienced cut-
NASA satellite base, and became a leader in GIS backs and a repositioning within the state. A major
and satellite imagery training. Coordinating with financial and political crisis at the end of the 1990s
state and multilateral development agencies, past accelerated Ecuador’s process of submitting to neo-
projects include analysis of banana cultivation, soil liberal reforms under the Washington Consensus
quality, agriculture and food production, quality of of market-oriented, state-roll back and ‘good gover-
life on the frontiers, and urban development. nance’ reforms. Briefly, the state required the IGM
Fulfilling its current remit in ‘applied geomatics17 to reorient itself towards commercial activities to
for Ecuadorian and Latin American environmental generate income (historically it received Ministry of
management and social development’, CLIRSEN Defence revenues). Under neoliberal precepts, the
provides ESPE students with the latest information Institute now carries out consulting and paid work
and software, thereby familiarising young pro- for outside clients, although its cartographers rec-
fessionals with its work and consolidating its ognise that this compromises their public service
brokerage position in geographical knowledges. function. To retain its technical edge, the Institute
CLIRSEN’s application of geomatics to the service is now in the process of creating an infrastructure
of development links it centrally to the complex of for spatial data, which would centralise different
geography–statehood–development. geospatial and cartographic data via the Institute’s
Ecuadorian geography is also embedded within a geoportal and web map service, while a national
pan-American network of geographers. Committed council has been created to oversee geo-informatics
to the ‘dissemination of knowledge of geographical and statistics (IGM 2008). According to a represen-
sciences in the continent’, the Pan-American Insti- tative,
tute in Geography and History was established in
the IGM became business-like but our intention is to be
1973 with a Quito headquarters under the Organisa- a service institution which means that economic profit
tion of American States umbrella. Pursuing its objec- doesn’t interest us much, but social profit [does], [i.e.]
tive to train teachers in geography, IPGH created the the advantages that IGM can give to society. (Workshop
Pan-American Centre of Geographical Study and discussion 2008)
Research (CEPEIGE, termed pan-American but in
In the context of less secure funding, and a man-
fact Ecuadorian), the fourth state institution using
date to work closer with the public and other geog-
and teaching ‘applied geography’.18 The Centre’s
raphers, the IGM is currently attempting to
students are recruited from the IGM, CLIRSEN and
re-situate itself as an expert and self-evident locus
universities on a number of short- and long-term
for geographical information and national cartography.
courses, funded 90 per cent by the Ecuadorian gov-
ernment and 10 per cent by IPGH.19 CEPEIGE’s cur-
rent director was previously CLIRSEN director and Geo-graphics as a tool of neoliberal
still teaches at ESPE, as do several of his colleagues. statehood: digitalisation and fugitive
Shared priorities and technologies of national map- spaces
ping arise from the individual career histories and
Despite the transformations in the techniques and
forms of embodied knowledge that tie these four
embodied knowledges of making maps, the IGM’s
institutions together.
stance regarding its role in map-making remains
At the present time, the Geographical Military
remarkably consistent. The Institute and its sup-
Institute continues as the key national mapping
porting institutions project the state as a carto-
institution in the country, although the context in
graphic corpus serving the rest of the country,
which it produces basic national cartography has
a theme that has been present since the IGM’s
been transformed within new configurations of
establishment (Radcliffe 2001). Rather than GIS and
capitalism in the late twentieth century (Pickles
geo-information opening up new spaces of social
1995). Its stress on the global parameters for scien-

interaction, contemporary geo-graphics and carto- In the context of late twentieth-century political
graphic methods compound the national institu- economic neoliberal restructuring, geo-graphic prac-
tional landscape and cartographic authority. tices are directly involved in state actions to provide
National mapping with geographical information monetary efficiency and financial probity, just as
systems (sometimes called statistical cartography) they simultaneously co-produce the rolling-out of
creates a profoundly transformed environment cost-cutting agendas. State and non-governmental
within which national maps are produced and cir- actors speak of how computer cartographic systems
culated. Moreover mapping is widely debated in contribute to and alleviate environmental damage.
the public sphere as national maps are strongly In urban planning and management, computer-
associated with identity and as territorial histories based GIS have all but replaced paper-based
support nationalist narratives. Given GIS’s associa- cartography and the use of other maps, as GIS
tion with a promise of the expanding amount of offers the possibility of assisting in planning, pro-
information in the public sphere (Pickles 1995), moting the ‘logic of [municipal] work for example
Ecuadorian discourses around the availability of in [mapping] everyday land-use, soil-cover, urban
geographic information and cartographic represen- land-use and zoning etc.’ (interview with Nury
tations has been layered into a discourse about Bermúdez, director of Research and Planning Unit,
maps’ beneficial purpose. In this setting political Quito Municipality 2007). Professional GIS users
economic restructuring combines with the potential inside and outside the state point to the fact that
spread of national images via computer-based car- GIS is now used to organise the electricity network
tography and pedagogy, a widespread discourse (interviews with Pablo Almeida, Director of NGO
around maps has arisen concerning maps’ utility in CDC-Jatun Sacha; Reinaldo Cervantes, GIS expert
management and planning activities. at SIISE 2007). NGOs using computer-based carto-
Under neoliberal statecraft, map making and graphies of landownership and environmental
geographical practices are important tools in mak- characteristics view maps as an invaluable tool
ing the state efficient and effective. Speaking at the in devising management plans for territories
Ministry of Environment, one professional argued (interview with Paulina Arroyo, The Nature Con-
that GIS software, GPS and satellite information servancy, Quito 2007).22 Professionals view com-
permitted the state to prioritise its work and spend puter-based spatial information instrumentally, as
effectively in the context of limited budgets, as well a technically improved ‘modernised’ tool in the
as guarantee financial transparency (interview with service of the state. For a low-income postcolonial
Manuel Pallares, GIS expert at the Ministry of country, computer-based geo-graphics are posi-
Environment monitoring unit July 2007).21 It is not tively associated with the possibility of meaningful
only state actors who speak of the availability of coordination of public policy making and imple-
geo-informatics as tools in good governance; such mentation. Neither the state nor the role of geo-
views are in fact widespread, being voiced by civil graphic information is questioned in this regard.
society organisations. As the state is ‘rolled back’ Technological innovation has additionally per-
and non-governmental agencies become involved mitted a new group of users to emerge, users
in territorial administration, a non-military set of whose practices shifted the meanings and applica-
actors use a wider range of (rapidly changing) tions of national maps in unprecedented ways.
technologies for the generation, analysis and carto- Geographical knowledges and techniques are cur-
graphic representation of geographical information. rently proliferating exponentially in Ecuadorian
What kinds of socio-technical practices and abstrac- civil society (Godard 2006, 84), most frequently in
tions are being generated around national maps professional non-governmental organisations. Rural
given geography’s institutionality and neoliberal development NGOs and Amazonian organisations
development? With the rise of NGOs and subcon- used GPS systems extensively from the early 1990s;
tracting of data collection and cartographic work, indeed, many map users preferred their maps to
neoliberal policy influences national cartographics the IGM products as the former were more rele-
by demanding greater efficiency. However, vant and up-to-date. For example, working along-
this also generates debates around the staffing side Amazon small farmers for 14 years, Manuel
of GIS jobs, and new patterns of dissemination of Pallares started to use GIS and GPS in 2002 to
spatial information, changes that contribute to a document the environmental damage done by
re-calibration of military, state and civil power. the petroleum industry in the Amazon region

(interview with Pallares). Non-governmental map- different state agencies and across to NGOs. In
ping served an increasingly articulate and organ- this respect the CDC-Jatun Sacha foundation has
ised civil society struggling to defend specialised in providing detailed conservation and
environmental and ethnic rights. Across the coun- environmental data to state and other agencies
try, the NGO FEPP began to use satellite informa- over the past 10 years. During the 1990s, a small
tion as well as GPS and aerial photos in the early sub-group of staff grew into an independent unit, a
1990s for their reasonable coverage (20–70%), in the pioneer in non-governmental sector use of GIS to
service of ordinary farmers’ claims to land title to prepare cartography. With their growing expertise
ensure access to credit and land security (interview came subcontracts from the Ministries of Environ-
with Wilson Navarro, manager of land-titling pro- ment and of Agriculture, local and municipal gov-
gramme, FEPP 2007). ernments as well as environmental NGOs, other
The so-called GIS ‘boom’ among civil society Ecuadorian foundations and US universities (inter-
organisations occurred slightly later, probably views with Almeida and Marcia Peñafiel, project
around 1997 to 1998 – this was mentioned by the coordinator at CDC, Quito July 2007). For instance,
NGO Pachamama, and this was the year when CDC-Jatun Sacha works with the Ministry of the
CDC-Jatun Sacha established its own geomatic unit Environment on the ‘diagnostic, design, develop-
to make the most of rapidly emerging capabilities ment and implementation of a geo-referenced
in geographical information processing, in this case system for national protected areas’ (interview with
around questions of environment and biodiversity Peñafiel). This Ministerial sub-contract employs
(interviews with CDC-Jatun Sacha staff, and field two geographical engineers, two cartographers,
observations 2007). For his 1996 ESPE thesis, one two biologists, a systems engineer and two soft-
CDC-Jatun Sacha staff member Pablo Almeida ware experts. Rather than retain this natural
recalled how he synthesised information on sepa- resource inventory project in state (indeed military)
rate sheets into one map without a GIS, but then in hands, as would have occurred during the twenti-
1997 he began to use ArcGIS and an image treat- eth century, this project epitomises how neoliber-
ment system for the classification of environmental alism and rapidly changing technologies have
information (interview with Almeida 2007). Today transformed the practices, the discourses and the
civil society organisations use a range of geograph- institutional context of the national map.
ical information systems and sources including Subcontracting and technological change are
Landsat, ArcView, CARTOMAP and Microestación. bound together by widespread discourses around
The deployment of geographical information sys- the costs and benefits of GIS. Whereas software
tems in producing maps for subaltern projects con- was initially costly and indeed certain institutions
tinues. One of the most innovative recent examples still face considerable difficulty in sourcing new
is the indigenous advocacy network AmazonGISnet hardware and software, professional debate centres
that trains locals in GPS, open source GIS technolo- on the cost efficiency and practicality of GIS.
gies and Google Earth images in order to defend Despite the fact that GIS is part of a globally inte-
the ancestral territories of ten ethnic groups and to grated set of technologies and practices, the Ecu-
‘design and implement our own geographical and adorian debate remains firmly grounded in a
communication information system in the service national context. GIS programmers argue the coun-
of our community’ (AmazonGISnet 2008). try requires cheaper national systems. According to
Yet the boundary between beleaguered state geog- one commentator,
raphers and progressive civil society geographies is
our project is focused on the need to resolve the limita-
being blurred increasingly by the imperatives of tions of current GIS, one of which is the high cost . . .
neoliberal policy that, in the name of cost-cutting, The quantity of GIS software components is very lim-
requires a considerable amount of subcontracting ited in the Ecuadorian market, due to the high prices
by the state to NGOs and consultants. Over recent imposed by the software distributors. (Larrea Peñaher-
years, cartographic practices can be carried out in rera 2005, 233, 242)
the state sector on behalf of non-state actors and
Yet the diversity of actors using GIS is reflected in
vice versa. Agriculture Ministry GIS staff are con-
the highly variable level of infrastructure and tech-
tracted by NGOs as well as by state agencies. The
nological capacity. For an environmental NGO
process of subcontracting the collection, analysis
establishing a regional network of geo-informatic
and mapping of geographical data occurs within

base-stations, the cost of equipping GIS systems, course highlights the need for ‘coordination’
GPS, materials and software remains high (inter- between different actors who collect geo-referenced
view with Arroyo 2007). By comparison, cheap data and create maps, so it has expressed a public
GPS has enabled small farmer organisations to doc- interest in ‘exchanging data’ on place names and
ument petroleum-related environmental damage geophysical features in order to keep its national
since around 2002 (interview with Pallares 2007). base cartography up-to-date and correct (Workshop
Whereas in previous decades, military cartogra- Roundtable 2008). The Geographical Military Insti-
phy was established and maintained through the tute’s spatial data infrastructure is also presented
professional training and specialisation of staff who as an enterprise that depends upon a broad social
came to embody map skills and knowledge, the commitment. ‘It has to be a great political will, a
recent trend is for the reorganisation of training to strong disposition among all public and private
involve a broader group in civil society. Carto- institutions [for the geomatics project] to succeed’,
graphic and GIS expertise in this sense has become according to a representative (Workshop Round-
one of a portfolio of skills held by individuals and table 2008). Again such debates occur in relation to
organisations outside the IGM and its partner insti- an implicit national space, with the emphasis on
tutions. For example, Quito’s municipal employees sharing among the Ecuadorian public. With demo-
receive training in GIS because not many have rele- cratisation and rapid technological change, the
vant skills, as also occurs in non-metropolitan military-state cartographic institutions cannot be
municipalities (interview with Bermúdez 2007). In seen to block the creation of geographical knowl-
the Ministry of Agriculture’s SIGAGRO, team mem- edge in civil society. Yet the Institute retains a con-
bers have to learn GIS and cartographic skills on cern to be involved in these new networks.
the job from each other, although formal training is The decentring of state-military cartographies
also available (interview with Hernán Velásquez, and the expansion of civil geographical knowl-
director of GIS, Ministry of Agriculture, Aqua- edges reorient debates about the circulation of
culture and Fishing, Quito 2007). The Ministry of map-related information in ways that reflect
Environment project required an extensive period reworked relations of power and the demand from
of training, as the skills base was not available an increasingly assertive civil society. Whereas
(interview with Peñafiel 2007). The trend is towards national maps would previously have passed
establishing a broader range of expertise in GIS through the Geographical Military Institute’s nor-
among civil servants and NGO staff. The boom in malisation department, today the pressure is on to
non-military geographies encouraged in turn the disseminate the results of its cartographic practices
creation of university courses. Recent years have to civil society. Informed public discourse views
seen the rise of public and private universities offer- geographical information and maps as goods that
ing courses in GIS, geography and environment, should be widely available. The Institute’s selective
including the post-1989 Catholic University pro- release of information is increasingly being ques-
gramme in geography and environment, and since tioned, as commentators argue that the ‘IGM has to
the 1990s University San Francisco and Central be a fundamental part of giving information to
University (also Lopez 2008).23 The embodied improve the country’ (Mario Bustos, map editor at
knowledge held by individuals thus becomes more the indigenous federation ECUARUNARI, at
diffusely distributed through Ecuadorian gover- roundtable discussion 2008). Likewise, the GIS
nance structures. For example, Quito municipality Director at the Ministry of Agriculture adopts a
gives on-the-job training to university students language of open access: ‘this information [on our
(interview with Bermúdez 2007). website] is free to any researcher to use’ (interview
The proliferation of new circuits by which geo- with Velásquez, SIGAGRO 2007). Civil servants
graphical and mapping information is passed on, who use GIS and geographical information for
circulated and deployed has created new chal- making maps consistently speak in public and pri-
lenges for the state in its efforts to retain its discur- vate about the urgency of getting geographical
sive and practice-based centrality in cartography. information onto the web, and into publications.24
IGM uses a discourse of ‘outreach’ in attempts to Such views resonate with neoliberal precepts of
create a contingent coalition of actors and institu- good governance, which in their more technical
tions (including civilians) in order to complete the guise transform state practices into procedural rou-
national geospatial information database. Its dis- tines with a veneer of transparency and scrutiny.

In this sense, the state discourse on dissemination An illustration of how postcolonial statecraft
is not so much a radical reorientation in policy but uses neoliberal digitalised geographical practices
an alignment with good governance principles. is the mapping work undertaken by Quito’s muni-
By contrast, other users of geographical informa- cipal government, as part of a decentralised pol-
tion articulate a more politically grounded account ity. In 1988, the French Institute for Research and
of the ways in which geo-graphics can circulate Development (IRD) turned its attention to ques-
and what they mean.25 According to one civil soci- tions of urban development. It allied with IGM
ety user of maps, the ‘state needs to coordinate and and IPGH to create a geographical information
be more inclusive. We [Ecuadorians] are all partici- system for urban management. The GIS was per-
pants, are part of the state’ (Workshop Roundtable fected by creating a database on the capital city
2008; similar points emerged in interviews with Quito, and resulted in an atlas of the city’s char-
staff at Ministry of Environment and the state acteristics. IRD positioned itself as a core mediator
statistical service). Civil users of geographical infor- between the different Ecuadorian interests in the
mation recently critiqued Ecuador’s institutio- project. While the IGM was interested in a GIS,
nalised cartography, bringing into question its the IPGH focused on research and Quito munici-
historic arrangements.26 Poor relations between pality grappled with electoral concerns, the IRD
state geographers and civil society have, according represented itself as a neutral overseer. Moreover
to commentators, broken down trust with the IGM the IRD discursively represented itself as a leader
standing accused of maintaining a highly centra- in the creation of a GIS and the interpretation of
lised and inappropriately ‘territorialist’ attitude. geographical information (Bermúdez and Godard
One geographer who had to coordinate with 2006). Adapting free source software, a French
IGM complained of the ‘worst possible relations’. IRD technician developed the GIS Savanne (now
Procedurally too, civil actors critique the over- called SavGIS) with the aim of creating a localised
bureaucratic state system. Civilian and indeed database, tele-detection and automated cartogra-
other state actors fault the IGM for its slow turn- phy (Souris 2006). However, the painstaking
around, and the bureaucratic hurdles in its geo- detailed work relied upon Ecuadorian labour:
graphical and cartographic divisions.27 Civilian IGM technicians digitalised the 1:4000 maps over
administration of map-making would, critics argue, 18 months (Godard 2006, 43, 75). IRD provided
permit ‘the creation [of] not only geographical resources when Ecuadorian partners were unwill-
information but up-to-date products for all institu- ing or unable to do so, although over time it
tions in the country, public and private’ (Workshop retreated from the project leaving it in municipal
Roundtable 2008; original emphasis). Following a hands, where it continues today. Today, the Quito
political agenda at odds with the state-centred sys- municipality employs geographers to do cartogra-
tem, certain geographers have opted to move into phy, aerial photos, satellite data and runs the
other mapping activities tied more to civil projects. computerised information system whose database
For instance, a young geographer completing his is continually updated by a team of trained staff.29
ESPE thesis found it difficult to bridge the gap In its production of Quito’s GIS and atlas, IRD
between ‘GIS and people and the environment’, so was drawing very directly on an equivalent atlas
he did participatory mapping with local activists.28 (though not a GIS) in Kinchasa, Zaire (de Maximy
Several professionals have left core institutions, 2006). The same ORSTOM staff who had worked
citing a failure to engage critically with social on the Zaire atlas prepared Quito’s. Viewed as
issues and the overly technical training (interviews equivalent to and transferable from the Zairian
with Fabricio, an ESPE-trained geographer now mapping, Quito’s geo-informatics atlas followed
working for FEPP 2007 and Andrés Andrango, Kitu the pattern for French planning science and exper-
Kara representative on National Indigenous Devel- tise to be framed as globally transferable, the
opment Council, Quito July 2007 [cf. Radcliffe long-established pattern whereby tropical non-
2007]). In one case a senior ESPE geographer French areas were compared via French institu-
resigned after 15 years, unhappy with its ‘sterile’ tions and scientific approaches (Bowd and Clayton
approach. Similarly, a geographer trained in remote 2005, 326).30 In judging Ecuadorian geography
sensing and GIS left CLIRSEN in 1995 because he against international standards, the French IRD
wanted to ‘give more back to society’ (interview staff complain about how their GIS was not
with Guevarra 2007). fully taken by the Ecuadorian staff in Quito’s

muncipality due to the ‘absence of the training of century Mexican state had to deal continuously
geographers’ (Godard 2006, 85).31 with ‘fugitive landscapes’, in the sense that panop-
If maps ‘are of-the-moment, brought into being tic cartographic knowledge eluded it due to diffi-
through practices (embodied, social, technical), cult terrain and uncooperative local people (Craib
always re-made every time they are engaged with’ 2004). Ecuadorian national maps generated with
(Kitchen and Dodge 2007, 335), then national maps computerised geo-informatics echo these fugitive
generated using GIS and geo-informatic systems landscapes, not in terms of the lack of access to
are Ecuador’s characteristic mappings in the early information or disruptive social relations but for
twenty-first century. The nation’s map is repeated other technical and social reasons. Remote sensing
endlessly as a visual representation on GIS sys- and satellite information provide a never-ending
tems, and is ubiquitous in development institutions stream of data to national cartographers, thereby
and state and non-governmental agencies’ planning challenging the practical capacity to decide when
and daily activities. In this way, national maps to amend cartographies. Meanwhile, the neoliberal
produced in the context of state action – that is policies of state–civil society coordination and
maps showing the distribution of schools, roads or subcontracting mean that different actors and insti-
biodiversity, or demographic trends – re-iterate tutions are creating numerous slightly amended
the connection between statehood, geographical maps, yet the means to collate and align these carto-
knowledges and national mappings. In as much as graphic productions are increasingly out of the
these computer-generated digital or paper maps hands of a centralised state body. Together these
document the ‘state of the nation’ with regard to embodied, social and technical issues create what
its people, resources and politico-administrative is arguably an ambivalence regarding the state
arrangements, they visualise the state inventory effect. Although its frontiers and territorial
(Pickles 1995). Despite digitalisation, national maps sovereignty are secure, national map images are
continue to be a national logo, an indication of who not-quite-modern enough because of the
‘we’ are not where we are (Anderson 1991). Maps constant updating possible with GIS and computer
as logos for Ecuadorian nationalism are produced cartography.
endlessly on websites, publications, professional
presentations and in the daily routines of GIS users
Territorialising development: land titles
across the country. These maps show no lines of
as (national) logos
longitude or latitude, geophysical features or sur-
rounding countries; for example a 2001 book on
Updating the Atlas maps with cartographic data from
Ecuadorian geography uses the map logo through- the IGM, data which serve the country’s development . . .
out (Gondard and León 2001). In a performative with geographical updates on the cultural themes . . . on
iteration of the national map, mapping practices each aspect of development. (Prologue to national atlas,
continue to refer implicitly to the state as the centre Sampedro 1990)
of ‘national reality’, just as these same practices (in
As in previous decades (Radcliffe 1996 2001; Rad-
that they involve people, equipment, institutional
cliffe and Westwood 1996), what is iterated again
procedures) provide material substance and pres-
and again in connection with state applications of
ence to the state qua a material and embodied
geography is the theme of national development.
entity. As such, these national maps represent
Geo-graphics are inserted into national horizons of
the abstraction of national territory and space just
expectations and feelings of under-development in
as it instantiates the self-evidentiality of the state’s
ways that continually reinforce an association
existence (cf. Sparke 2005).
between geography and utility, a disciplinary
Nevertheless at the same time the sheer quantity
prosthetics used in attempts to overcome the lack
of maps and the range of their themes, symbols,
of national wealth and progress. Viewed as a
time-series embodied within them indicate an
problem-solving tool, geography has become
excess of detail. Although national maps have
bound up metaphorically and through specific
always worked through selectivity, it is the magni-
practices and institutions, with questions – per-
tude and speed of production (through satellite
ceived as urgent – about the country’s economic
data, GPS and the speed of computing) that today
and social advancement. While Akhil Gupta traced
create new challenges in relation to selectivity. In
how notions of development became integral to
his fluent analysis, Craib notes how the nineteenth-

India’s quest for national self-realisation (Gupta tematically include established and emergent geo-
1998), here the Ecuadorian discourses and practices graphical skills.32 One of the first applications of
that put geography as a set of techniques alongside geographers trained in GIS was in the agricultural
the problematics of development and national self- sector modernisation programme (2001–3) involv-
pride are examined. Extending an analysis of car- ing the Ministry of Agriculture and the NGO CDC-
tography in statecraft, this section explores how Jatun Sacha, with the ESPE providing staff training
geographical knowledges become bound up with (interviews with CDC-Jatun Sacha staff 2007). The
national projects of development in an era of neo- Ministry of Agriculture GIS service director talks of
liberalism and rapidly transforming geographical GIS and the agricultural system working together
practices. This section demonstrates that digitalisa- in state modernisation by employing scientists
tion has been understood as a seamlessly con- (geographers, agronomists and others) to stream-
nected tool for the goals of neoliberal development, line rural affairs (interview Velásquez 2007). Simi-
offering efficiency, cost-cutting and the creation of larly, GIS
property titles.
offer[s] accessible geographical information to diverse
The discursive association between geography institutions and drive[s] the country’s development,
and national development is widespread. ESPE achieving the diffusion of information in the form of
describes its mission as ‘forming part of the digitalized maps with socio-economic and socio-
national system of higher education and directing environmental information of the country. (Larrea Peña-
its efforts to the improvement of living conditions herrera 2005, 1)
in the country and promoting development’ (ESPE
Reducing development to a question of efficiency
website 2008). Likewise ‘IGM wants development
and routinised goals, state-led development
not just of the Institute but for [Ecuadorian] soci-
brought in digital spatial tools in order to cover a
ety’ (Workshop Roundtable 2008). IGM’s sharing of
greater range of activities in a shorter amount of
geographical information is ‘for development’ and
time. The production of geographical information
‘for the country to develop itself’ (Workshop
in cartographic form also served to make visible
Roundtable 2008). As geography as a discipline
the various development efforts underway, being
and set of practices is associated with territorial
bound up in its form (as well as its effects) with
ordering (ordenamiento territorial), it offers a unique
connotations of progress (cf. Pickles 1995, x).33
policy instrument for the state which (supposedly)
Moreover, nationally specific GIS systems were
is concerned with systematising territorial organisa-
devised to overcome national underdevelopment.
tion in the goal of development:
A Catholic University thesis devised a simple GIS
[T]he geographer plays a particularly relevant role [in that ‘does not specifically aim to be profitable but
development] since he [sic] is most called upon to syn- rather is oriented towards providing academic and
thesize other actors’ interactions, as well as their pro- social assistance to NGOs with limited resources’
posals, in actions and decisions which overall seek (Larrea Peñaherrera 2005, 233–4).
Development and Social Wellbeing. (Briceño 1996; origi-
Together with neoliberal imperatives, GIS offers
nal capitals)
other developmental advantages. Budget cutbacks
These aspects come together neatly in the title of combined with the need to provide targeted assis-
CEPEIGE’s journal Applied Geography and Develop- tance make fine-grained spatial information crucial
ment. Instrumental and developmentalist discourses in the planning and implementation stages of
reveal strong continuities with previous articula- national development projects. As the statistical
tions of geographical knowledge, statehood and service director argued,
development.
In the social sector, what one needs is to prioritise the
Yet the emergence of digital geographical know- type of interventions to be developed in a specific area.
ledges and GIS permitted new practices and For example I could have a certain amount of develop-
approaches to the diverse field termed development aid and need to see where I could use it. (Inter-
ment. State development agencies began to incor- view with Cervantes 2007)
porate the practices of geo-informatics and GIS as
Development actors can demonstrate efficacy,
socially neutral tools to modernise the ongoing task
efficiency and the successful targeting of specific
of national improvement. From the late 1990s, the
beneficiaries by using geo-referenced data to ensure
state agency for development began to more sys-

that tightly controlled resources reach out directly to lateral development institutions began to promote
the most needy. Forecasting future development land-titling projects, viewing titles as the basis for
needs is also done with geographical statistical infor- creating collateral and releasing the poor’s entre-
mation (INEC leaflet 2007; also Cervantes 2008). preneurial potential as well as generating govern-
Within the development enterprise, land titling ment revenue (Mitchell 2005). Beginning in
is a critical arena for GIS design, application and Peruvian urban shanties, land-titling projects have
routinisation over recent years, especially in rural subsequently been promoted by the World Bank,
areas and in areas populated by Afro-Ecuadorians Inter-American Development Bank and other agen-
and indigenous populations. Indigenous and Afro- cies. In Ecuador a flagship development project
Ecuadorian claims for secure titles and autonomy (1998–2002) for indigenous and black populations
were not met by previous decades of state-led mapped and legalised lands, trying to deal with a
land reform and titling projects. Increasingly too, huge backlog of demands (cf. Offen 2003 on
civil groups and ethnic associations critiqued the Colombia). Taking topographers and geographers
IGM’s basic 1:50 000 national maps as out- into communities with GPS, the project began to
of-date,34 and for not recognising ancestral territo- separate out overlapping titles, and created a GIS-
ries. Indigenous and black groups have histori- based national map of awarded and in-process
cally been subject to violent usurpation of titles at the project’s HQ (interview with Kurika-
landownership and usufruct, often by large land- mak Yupanki, Director of Fundación Tinku, for-
owners with private militias, and by state conces- merly on the mapping team, Quito 2007).36
sions to mining and petrol companies. NGOs and Supporting this process was the NGO FEPP, which
advocacy organisations had long struggled on had established its own unit for land-titling in
their behalf to settle disputes and protect rural 1996. Today, the FEPP specialist land-titling team
land-rights. For example, the NGO FEPP worked comprises a group of specialist cartographers
from IGM maps to measure plots of land, before and geographers using GPS, laptops, CARTOMAP
using this as the basis for legal registration of and CivilCad ‘to respond to peasant, indigenous,
title. The creation of clear plans of individual and montuvio, and Afro-Ecuadorian organisations in
collective territories, together with security of land their need to accede to, and legally possess, land
tenure, represent a key component of indigenous, and territory’ (FEPP document 2006).37 Subse-
and to a lesser extent Afro-Ecuadorian, political quently, FEPP has continued land-titling work
demands. As land-title documents provide official using aerial photos, GPS and satellite photos with
identification as well as the means of raising IDB assistance.38
credit, they continue to be a development priority One key dimension of land-titling projects is to
for marginalised and impoverished populations resolve disagreements between neighbours over
(interview with Navarro 2007). plot boundaries, and to remove any ambiguity
With constitutional provision for collective terri- about the extent of a single unified plot of land.
tories and the political representation of ethnic This process of saneamiento – or cleansing as it is
minorities, the political context for land-titling termed in Latin America – works to replace blurred
efforts changed in the late 1990s just at the time boundaries or overlapping usufruct claims with
when geographical knowledges were becoming precise, plotted and GPS-referenced borders.
decentralised. In the 1990s the demarcation, regis- Whether measuring and delimiting collective or
tration and titling of rural smallholdings were individual territories, the aim of land-titling pro-
re-organised around the contradictory impulses of jects is this. Neoliberal ideologies underpin these
ethnic rights activism, neoliberalism and the rise of abstractions of everyday practices and social inter-
geographical information systems.35 After centuries action by working to create legally recognised
of state neglect, only in the 1990s did Ecuadorian property owners and their abstracted and routin-
state institutions begin to coordinate to clarify rural ised spaces.39 Neoliberalism’s extension as a set of
landholdings (interview with a lawyer with experi- practices thus proceeds through an abstraction of
ence in rural land-use conflict, Quito 2007). A key rural areas that produces the reality of neoliberal
driver of this process in terms of state rationales economies at the same time as it establishes the
was the global neoliberal argument that clear land grounds upon which these areas enter an emergent
title creates potential entrepreneurs. As part of a free-market economy, conceived as a product of
global move to register property ownership, multi- socio-technical practices (cf. Mitchell 2005).

Yet such maps are not merely proleptic pawns National cartographics generated by geographical
in the (contested) advance of neoliberal political information systems and computerised systems
economies. They also replicate – albeit in minia- relay an endless series of invaluable information
ture – the jigsaw-like quality of national territories for development, but the capacity to read them
abstracted out ‘like a detachable piece of a jigsaw purposefully remains in question as does the secu-
puzzle . . . wholly detached from its geographical rity of the state’s authority. Meanwhile the relent-
context [without] lines of longitude and latitude, less advance of practices that create abstractions of
place names for rivers, seas and mountains, neigh- space in land-titling projects (introduced and rein-
bours’ (Anderson 1991, 175; original emphasis). By troduced over recent decades) miniaturise the
emphasising the ethnic identity–territory relation, national map, creating a series of individualised
Offen’s argument that the process of gaining land sovereignties vis-à-vis the market in place of
titles does not ‘‘‘plug into’’ the existing institu- Enlightenment public spheres.
tional arrangements governing private property’ Nonetheless, today’s neoliberal and digitalised
(2003, 47) crucially misses the ways in which maps are still authorised by the nation-state, whose
hegemonic and counter-hegemonic mappings can identity is bolstered by them just as the carto-
converge in unexpected ways (Sparke 2005). More- graphic practices contingently reproduces its
over, the creation of an ‘infinitely reproducible instantiation as a sovereign space. The mutual co-
series’ of such land titles does the work of a state constitution of the map and the state effect is thus
effect, one now intrinsically entangled with a neo- unbroken, although its mechanisms, meanings and
liberal abstraction of space (the point about series output have been radically transformed. The state’s
is Anderson’s). Although indigenous and poor reworked centrality in cartographic practices
rural people have long called for land titling, they reflects the waning of military monopolies over
are now caught up in a process that pressures geographical knowledge, yet persists despite globa-
them to adopt more individualistic and market- lised practices and powers that prompted the
oriented practices in relation to their land. Scaling privatisation of map-making, the appeal of interna-
down the ‘modular’ unit of the nation-state – tional conventions, and the reorganisation of prac-
positioned as it is in global geopolitics as equiva- tices under discourses of private property. Neither
lent to and discrete from its neighbours – to the the imaginative geographies of neoliberal apolo-
individual rural plot (similarly modular, equiva- gists nor ‘thin’ critical accounts of neoliberalism
lent in law to, but completely separated from, its adequately convey the ways in which the nation-
neighbours), geographical practices of land titling state remains a significant actor in cartographic
simultaneously instantiate national mappings and practices in this case. As such, no maps are inno-
underpin the fraught process of the country’s neo- cent as cartographic productions reflect the shifts
liberal development.40 in power and practice that contingently fix a set of
indices to a grid that has already been claimed and
marked out. The material basis of the state effect
Conclusions: national cartography in an
realised via the practices of mapping nation-state
era of GIS and neoliberalism
territories occurs within and reproduces structures
Today in Ecuador, national maps have almost a tal- of power. During 2007 and 2008 proposed changes
ismanic hold over conceptions of development to Ecuador’s political-administrative structure
despite neoliberal reforms and the digitalisation of provided a touchstone for contests during the
geographical information. Development documents, re-writing of the country’s constitution, raising
programmes and GIS-related web pages contain an profound debates around national identity, territori-
ever-growing series of Ecuador logo-mappings ality and the role of geographical knowledge. As this
without longitude, latitude, place-names – the map process of political economic restructuring continues
represents the country in terms of its development apace, geographical information and national map-
needs. The transitory and never-quite-complete pings experience another round of reorganisation, in
national maps produced for development purposes their embodiments, meanings and routine practices.
as an explicit component of statecraft and as an Grappling with the social, technical and embodied
urgent national goal are an indication both of the interactions ‘beyond the map’ that shape national
just-in-time productivity of a neoliberal state effect, mappings remain the task of an emergent critical
and a hint at the insecurity of that very effect. geography in Ecuador.

towards the ‘improvement’ of national economies and
Acknowledgements populations (see below).
My thanks go to the British Academy for research 9 In Bolivia, one state functionary said ‘The indigenous
[believe] they have to accompany all of the steps that
funding, and my assistants Ricardo Gómez, Olivia
[National Institute of Agrarian Reform] does. Now
Rendón and Leo Solano for their contribution.
that is going too far, as they are requesting every-
Three reviewers made constructive comments; any thing up to GPS! They don’t know how to handle
errors remain my own. that, nor is there any reason for them to know, nor is
it going to benefit anyone if they are using GPS’
(cited in Andolina et al. 2009, 100).
Notes
10 AmazonGISnet is the most important example in
1 My research methods included over 30 interviews of Ecuador of indigenous knowledge of geography and
staff in key state, NGOs and academic institutions GIS techniques, and significantly it is not a govern-
that use geographical techniques. These interviews ment agency.
took place in 2007 and 2008 in geographers’ places of 11 Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian populations (around
work. Frequently, interviews took place alongside or 18% and 10% of the national population, respectively)
during participant observation of geographers at have been treated as ‘less than national’ by state-
work. A literature review of materials using maps building processes that dispossessed and displaced
produced using GIS and state IGM data was com- them (Yashar 2005). In turn they appropriated map-
pleted, and I also attended a Ministry of Culture sem- making in their rights claims and political activism.
inar on the country’s cultural cartography. A 2008 12 The Ecuadorian airforce articulates a profound obliga-
workshop on Ecuadorian geographies was the arena tion regarding national territorial sovereignty and
for debate of initial research findings. The confidenti- space sovereignty (interview with Colonel Patricio
ality of all respondents has been respected through Salazar of the Ecuadorian Airforce, Quito 2008).
the research process. 13 The association between national maps and the au-
2 In this paper, (post)colonial refers to the complex thorisation of territory was particularly notable dur-
temporalities and spatialities associated with the ing the Ecuador–Peru border conflict (1942–1998)
inauguration of modernity through colonisation. Post- when IGM maps included territory effectively ruled
colonialism as a political and intellectual critique of by Peru, and included reference to how Ecuador dis-
the consequences of the (post)colonial examines how puted the 1948 Rio Protocol, which had provisionally
philosophy and sciences were used in colonialism, settled the dispute (Radcliffe 1998). Ecuadorian geog-
interrogates the specifics of ‘universal’ knowledges, raphers mapped the disputed frontier region, decid-
examines the position of subalterns, and analyses ing in favour of the Ecuadorian state.
Latin American specificity in global processes (Castro 14 One typical undergraduate at ESPE would study: geod-
Gómez 1999; Dussel 1999; Sánchez Ramos and Sosa esy, chemistry, photo-interpretation, geology, geomor-
Elı́zaga 2004; Mignolo 2005). phology, analysis of GIS and satellite information,
3 In the recent literature, maps have been variously calculus, economics, environment, geopolitics, astro-
approached as social constructions (Harley 2001), as nomic geodesy (interview with David Benavides, geog-
propositions (Wood 1992 1993), as inscriptions (Pick- rapher trained at the Catholic University and ESPE,
les 1995 2004), as performative (Hanna and Del now working in environmental monitoring, Quito
Casino 2003) and, following Latour, as actants. I am 2007). ESPE is not to be confused with the National
grateful to one reviewer for clarifying this for me. Polytechnic School, established in the mid-nineteenth
4 GIS is a contested term referring to ‘the integration and century with geographers including the German Teod-
use of computer-aided design, computer cartography, oro Wolf (Radcliffe 2001). Both ESPE and the National
database management and remote sensing information Polytechnic suggest a connection, however indirect,
systems’. I focus specifically on GIS as a ‘series of tech- with France’s post-Revolutionary Ecole Polytechnique,
nologies for collecting, manipulating and representing ‘established in 1794 to train the engineers and applied
spatial information’ (Pickles 1995, 2, 3). scientists of the new republican age’ (Heffernan 1994,
5 Geo-graphics comprises the making of geographical 23).
drawings according to mathematical rules. 15 Other higher education institutions play a relatively
6 French connections with Ecuador date to Cond- minor role in mapping expertise, with a handful of
amine’s early eighteenth-century expedition to universities recently offering courses in GIS, geogra-
confirm the earth’s shape and flattening of the poles. phy, topography and statistics. Quito’s Catholic Uni-
7 Geo-informatics develops and uses an information versity established a geography department in 1989.
science infrastructure to address geoscience problems. Quito municipality’s director of planning, and the
8 In this context, national development refers to the incoming head of the national electricity council, both
discourses, practices and programmes oriented trained at the Central University of Ecuador.

16 Ramón was also involved in interpreting aerial photo- 27 The IGM blames these delays on the demands of
graphs of the Ecuador–Peru border after the resolu- other activities required by neoliberal cutbacks
tion of this conflict (see note 13). (Workshop Roundtable 2008).
17 Geomatics refers to the discipline of gathering, stor- 28 Unprepared by military training to deal with social
ing, processing and delivering geographical informa- conflicts, geographers in NGOs quickly learn about
tion or spatially referenced information. the violence structuring messy everyday geographies
18 At the pilot stage of CEPEIGE, the aim was to pro- in rural and urban areas (interview with Benavides
mote studies on geography, cartography, history and 2007).
related studies perceived to be closely inter-related. 29 In addition to the Quito project, ORSTOM established
19 Currently two courses a year on applied geography, the ORELLANA research project in five Andean
with around 10–20 students; also a 4-year interna- countries and Brazil using census data for ‘compara-
tional course, and specialist short-term courses (8–10 tive and synthetic’ analysis. An Ecuadorian atlas com-
courses a year) (interview with Filemón Valencia, bined census data with a ‘statistical cartography’
CEPEIGE Director 2007). generated by an ORSTOM geographer (Deler et al.
20 Latin American forms of neoliberalism are diverse 1983; Gondard and León 2001).
and contested, variously involving the privatisation of 30 These atlases were followed by geo-informatic data-
national resources, cutbacks in social spending, open- bases and cartographic collections on Veracruz, Mexico
ing of economies to foreign investment, and the pro- (De Maximy 2006). Interestingly Veracruz was one of
found reworking of nationalist discourses. the most multi-ethnic regions in Mexico and was the
21 With a biology degree and GIS masters, Pallares has one where fugitive landscapes most hampered state
14 years of experience working with semi-subsistence cartography in the nineteenth century (Craib 2004).
Amazon farmers. Whether GIS is capable of achieving 31 The disciplinary effect can be noted in attitudes of state
such a broad agenda is beyond my concern here; nev- geographers. For instance, the GIS director at the Min-
ertheless, what is striking is the insistence that it istry of Agriculture talks about how their work ‘is a
could aim to do so. very serious piece of research. So we try to apply a rig-
22 Trained in environmental studies in Canada, Arroyo’s orous process and we work with norms. We have inter-
subsequent work in Ecuador led to a university national standards’ (interview with Velásquez 2007).
course in anthropology; she began using GIS and GPS 32 At the time, development was coordinated by the
in 1998–9. state National Development Council (interview with
23 One GIS and cartography professor at San Francisco Almeida 2007).
University is Marcelo Guevarra, ESPE graduate in 33 National development goals inform individual biogra-
geographical engineering, with a masters from Brazil phies too. Interested in development, Pedro (pseudo-
in GIS and remote sensing, now based at NGO The nym) trained in GIS and environmental management
Nature Conservancy. Another professor is Richard in the US, before returning to contribute to national
Resl, ex-development worker and now technical advi- development (interview 2007).
sor to AmazonGISnet. 34 Amazon basin river channels are liable to shift; IGM
24 Having a history of public engagement through maps are updated using GPS from canoes and trans-
school visits and its cultural centre, the IGM repeats ferring data to GIS (interview with staff at environ-
its ‘responsibility to the country’ to disseminate mental NGO Pachamama, Quito 2007).
geographical information (interview with Ing. Bravo 35 Likewise in Bolivia, multilateral and bilateral agencies
2007). promoted land title mapping, providing three-
25 However, a routinised dissemination can exist in quarters of the funding (equipment, vehicles, pay-
these NGO spaces. Non-governmental organisations ment for private contractors etc.) for this programme.
using geographical informatics talk about preparing Multicultural legislation established the state frame-
maps to raise awareness of their work, and for work for rights to indigenous territories, and private
various publications. One geographer working with cartography firms were contracted to establish the
GIS-based cartography talked about how his organi- formal boundaries of each ethnic territory (Andolina
sation’s principal goal was to ‘make information et al. 2005).
accessible to everyone. We have a lot of information’ 36 Critics attacked the project’s bureaucracy, cost and
(interview with Leo Sotomayer, GIS specialist, Nature slowness (interview with Pachamama staff 2007),
Conservancy, Quito 2007; interview with Arroyo but it arguably speeded up the (glacial) pace of land
2007). A joint NGO–state project on mapping national registration for indigenous and black populations.
protected areas prioritised the preparation of a public 37 Over 1100 organisations have been helped since the
website as a key project component. titling team came into existence in the mid-1990s,
26 Critics – who come from a range of institutional and and over 47 000 families issued with secure and well-
professional backgrounds – have not been named to documented and mapped land title (interview with
protect their confidentiality. Navarro 2007).

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National Maps, Digitalisation and Neoliberal Cartographies - Radcliffe

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National Maps, Digitalisation and Neoliberal Cartographies - Radcliffe

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National maps, digitalisation and

neoliberal cartographies: transforming

key words cartography nation-state Latin America France neoliberalism land-

Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EN

revised manuscript received 23 June 2009

science, this paper examines how the mapping of

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Table I Acronyms used in the paper

Acronym Full name in Spanish ⁄ French Full name in English

CEPEIGE Centro Panamericano de Estudios e Pan-American Centre for Geographical

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 34 426–444 2009

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