Counter-Mapping. Un caso a Nairobi

Abstract

This text considers the role of mapping practices for informal settlements as (potential) agents for their transformation. Attention is focused on the case of Nairobi, Kenya. More specifically, the paper has as its objective the proposal of a possible problematic framework (geographical-political and thematic-critical) within which to observe citizen mapping in the Map Kibera Project. The ‘disputed space' explored in this case is simultaneously the physical space of the informal settlements of Nairobi and the abstract space of cartographic representation. The latter is understood first of all as a land of confrontation between the various expressions of the ‘right to a city', a land in other words where different practices are appraised of inclusion (or exclusion) of the inhabitants of the informal city in the processes of planning and governing the territory.