Mapping Migrant Territories as Topological Deformations of Space

Abstract

Our research uses the concept of “territories” to describe the production of migrant space. The article describes a project based in London where the everyday practice of walking is used to map migrant territories, which are conceptualized as dispersed and overlapping, causing topological deformations to the actual lived space. We interrogate these deformations through focusing on the micro-scale and the everyday, mapping them as “scapes” and “spheres.” Using specific computational techniques, we transform the original walks into an architectural tool for investigating the fluctuations and flows of the contemporary city. In doing so, we approach territories from two distinct angles: from the geopolitical perspective of territories seen as the product of the interplay of politics, power, and space and from the biological perspective of territories seen as the primal need of all animals, including humans, for space and a certain distinction from their environment and from others.

Postcards From the Edge of Europe: Immigrant Landscapes and the Creation of Greektopia, Heterotopia, and Atopia in Lesvos, Greece

“…The dangerous trip from their countries of origin through various transit countries entering a host of geopolitical landscapes subscribe them to a unique status that has real and socially constructed limitations. According to Awan and Langley (2013):[t]he migrant is by condition political, both due to past events and present realities and any mapping of diasporic territory therefore needs to engage with the ways in which the geopolitical realities of other places are inscribed on to the bodily practices of the migrant. (p. 229)…”

Experimenting with spaces of encounter: Creative interventions to develop meaningful contact

“…This is an innovative approach, though it draws inspiration from others who have used photo-documentation and time-space mapping to analyse and present research findings (e.g. Awan and Langley, 2013; see Rose, 2012 for a discussion of photo-documentation). Participants in the spatial experiments were male and female, from a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds and ethnic groups, and ranged from 10 to 35 years of age.…”

The Map, the Other and the public visual image

“…and the spatial visualisation of residential segregation, however, has been criticised as a dangerous practice because it tends to reproduce the idea of social separation from Others, as well as 'fixity' in migrant life. Alternatives are found, for instance, by replacing the focus on individuals with a household approach (Wright & Ellis, 2006), by mapping fluctuating migrant territories grasped by walking their everyday spaces together with them (Awan & Langley, 2013), or by investigating segregation in cities through a combination of mental maps and tracking technologies (GPS) (Greenberg Raanan & Shoval, 2014).…”

“…The association of realms such as cartography, on the one hand, and racial/ethnic Otherness, on the other hand, could lead a geographer to think about past and present cartographic products such as cartographic representations of ethnic groups, maps of racial segregation, migration maps, decorative emblems of difference within historical maps, colonial/imperial mapping and non-Western/indigenous cartography (Awan & Langley, 2013;Edney, 1997;Paulani Louis, Johnson, & Hadi Pramono, 2012;Pearce, 2009;Pratt, 1996;Winlow, 2009;Wright & Ellis, 2006). The present article, however, deals with a different way of confronting Otherness with cartography.…”