ABSTRACT
The recent growth in the availability of modern spatial information technology (SIT) – geographic information systems (GIS), low-cost global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing image analysis software – as well as the growth of participatory mapping techniques has enabled communities to make maps of their lands and resource uses, and to bolster the legitimacy of their customary claims to resources by appropriating the state’s techniques and manner of representation (Peluso 1995). Since the publication of Hugh Brody’s seminal work on mapping the lands of native Americans in the Canadian sub-Artic (1981), participatory mapping has enabled the successful demarcation of land claims that led to: the signing of treaties (e.g. Nisga’a); compensations for land loss (Native American, Maori); and formation of indigenous territory and government (e.g. Nunavut).
