Description
This paper investigates how mapping practices operate as instruments of power and knowledge control in contemporary authoritarian contexts. Drawing on critical cartography, political geography, and digital governance studies, it argues that spatial data, technologies, and algorithmic visualization have become new tools of political domination. Mapping no longer merely represents space; it produces and governs it, defining what becomes visible, knowable, and ultimately governable.
In response, the study conceptualizes counter-mapping as an alternative form of spatial knowledge production and a means of resisting epistemic domination. Counter-mapping initiatives—ranging from civic data platforms to open-source mapping projects—reclaim the map as a site of political struggle, revealing the power relations embedded in spatial databases, design interfaces, and visual codes. The research focuses on recent global examples of civic tech activism and data-driven mapping efforts that challenge state or corporate monopolies over spatial information and seek to democratize access to geographic knowledge.
This study employs qualitative content analysis to examine how counter-mapping practices function as spatial acts of resistance under authoritarian governance. It analyzes official planning documents and spatial regulations produced by the AKP government alongside counter-mapping materials created by local communities in ecologically contested areas like the Kaz Mountains and areas struggling for spatial justice the Sulukule, Tarlabaşı, Fener-Balat. Through this comparative analysis, the study explores how state-led spatial interventions and grassroots mapping practices articulate competing visions of space, territory, and justice, highlighting how counter-mapping redefines space as both a political and ecological arena of struggle.
Ultimately, the paper argues that counter-mapping practices can democratize spatial knowledge and advance a critical “spatial turn” in Political Studies. By linking cartography to debates on social justice, digital authoritarianism, and data transparency, the study proposes a framework for reimagining how power is mapped, visualized, and resisted in the twenty-first century.
