Decolonizing local planning through new social cartography: making Black geographies visible in a plantation context in Colombia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Maps produced during the saga of European ‘discovery’ were shown to erase local forms of spatial knowledge of colonised populations to serve domination interests. This paper explores the continuation of this colonial erasing logic in local planning practices in Jamundí, a municipality where Black peasants’ traditional farms persist in a sugarcane dominated landscape. We first compare official maps from the current Land Use Plan of Jamundí with social cartography produced by afro-descendant community councils to analyse the maps’ selections, omissions and additions. Through community map drawings and collective discussions during cartography workshops, interviews and tours of the territory, we then reconstruct a Black geography that is concealed in official maps. Our analysis shows that official maps naturalise a scale in which only plantations are formally represented, rendering invisible small-scale traditional agricultural systems and Black ecologies, favouring the expansion of uses and activities detrimental to Black territorial projects in Jamundí. We argue that afro-descendant living spaces and experiences are visually omitted from spatial representation in the physical planning maps through institutionalised processes. We conclude that decolonising local planning is crucial for the recognition and securing of afro-descendant customary land and territorial rights in Colombia as well as for regional sustainability.