Abstract

From distinct theoretical and geographical positions the three authors at the centre of this study share a preoccupation for the forms and meanings of the cartographic paradigm, grasping its substantial potential for knowledge. Within postmodernism, mapping subsequently appears as a device which retraces the connections of space and power in the history of colonialism's consolidation (Said), a projectuality within socialist praxis, capable of individuating social connections in an era of global disorientation (Jameson), and, finally, a rhetorical tool for reading the practices of power and the dynamics of resistance in everyday life (de Certeau). The essay tries to untangle the thin red line that runs between these theoretical interventions, showing how in de Certeau a deep knowledge of the history of cartography brought him to hypothesise alternative, and more flexible, techniques to overcome the aporia which Said and Jameson fall into.