Such projects transcend the university as technology

Such projects transcend the university as technology amplifies previously unheard voices and dissent and, to borrow an old postcolonial phrase, rewrites, or in this case, rewrites the empire. This is the intent of the online Native Land Project, an interactive site that Atlas Obscura says is the opposite of secular colonial cartography, eliminating land and state boundaries to illuminate the complex network of historical and contemporary indigenous territories, treaties and languages spanning the United States, Canada, the Canadian Arctic, Greenland and Australia. Temprano makes no claim to definitive historical accuracy, but points to other similar projects that fill gaps in “his” own online map, such as the vast territories of South America redrawn in situ by Amazonian tribes collecting data in situ via smartphones, and Aaron Capellas’ maps of indigenous tribal villages, which make an attractive printed book perfect for classroom use. After discovery by Europeans, writes historian Michel-Rolf Trouillot, after classification, cartography and slavery, the Other finally appears in the human world. Over several decades, postcolonial projects have tried to gradually demystify this idea, to recognize the interdependence between name, cartography and power, and, if possible, to reclaim the names, borders and identities behind the erased history. Visit the Native Land site and enter an address in North America, South America, or Australia to learn more about Native peoples’ present and past, their languages, and the historical treaties signed and broken over the centuries. By clicking on each indigenous area, you will find links to other informative sites and can make adjustments to improve the accuracy of this global project. At a time when neocolonial projects such as pipelines threaten the survival of indigenous communities again, and when indigenous people and their children are jailed for crossing paramilitary land borders, these issues could not be more urgent. He urges people, indigenous and non-indigenous, to remember that the land was once a vast territory inhabited by autonomous indigenous peoples who gave it different names according to their language and geography. Brown notes that the materials used to make maps, charts, and globes contributed to their destruction. Paper burns, rots, is exposed to water and insects.

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