Re-Mapping Borderlands

Between Critical & Operative Approaches

craft – competence center anti-frigile territories

26/03/2025, h. 10:30 – 18:00
Politecnico di Milano, Campus Leonardo, Edificio 3, Aula 3.1.8
Piattaforma Webex

How can we map and represent border areas in their complexity and transitory nature? How can we integrate critical and technical dimensions in the production of knowledge frameworks that support policy design and cross-border cooperation tools?
The seminar invites a collective reflection on these issues, fostering a dialogue between theoretical perspectives rooted in critical cartography and operational and technical approaches that intertwine descriptive, interpretative, and imaginative dimensions. Through contributions from international guests and experts, the seminar will delve into the maps-power-action nexus, examining cartographic representations as tools for shaping knowledge and governance of cross-border territories and as performative practices claiming possibilities for intervention in contested and frontier spaces.
The event’s primary objective is to encourage a shared reflection on the potential of cartographic representations as instruments of resistance, imagination, and concrete action. The seminar is part of the research project “Italian Borderscapes after 2020. Mapping, Unfolding, and Re-framing Border Territories in response to the Covid-19 pandemic”, funded by the European Union NextGenerationEU. The event is co-funded by DAStU-Polimi’s CRAFT, the Competence Center on Anti-Fragile Territories.

Relatori

Henk van Houtum, Nishat Awan, Vanessa Lacaille & Mounir Ayoub, Jean Peyrony, Loris Servillo

Discussant

Gennaro Postiglione, Valeria Fedeli, Aubrey Toldi, Salome Katamadze, Luigi Farrauto, Ingrid Kofler, Raffaella Coletti, Massimo Bricocoli, Laura Montedoro, Gabriele Pasqui, Fabio Manfredini, Alessandro Frigerio

Responsabili

Alice Buoli, Isabella Traeger & Valentina Rodani

Photo Credits: ‘Migration Map’, Đorđe Balmazović (2015). Source: Free the Map (2024), p. 99