Mapping Local Resistance to Anti-Immigration National Law: A Carto-Essay

Abstract

This article revolves around a map titled Resistenze locali al Decreto Salvini [Local resistance to the Sal-vini decree], which was created with OpenStreetMap by geographer Cristina Del Biaggio on the 5th of January 2019. The map aimed to dynamically visualise local protests arising against the new legislative decree on immigration and security approved by the Italian Senate in November 2018 (the so-called "Salvini decree"). Soon after its first appearance, the map had been circulated within national newspapers' and mag-azines' online articles, NGOs' webpages, blog posts, Facebook, and Twitter comments. Adopting an experimental format, this article is assembled in the form of a "carto-essay" which includes: original texts by the mapmaker (Del Biaggio C.), comments by curators (Rossetto T. and Boria E.), and a series of screenshots capturing moments in the map's life. Written on the spur of the moment and following the impulse to grasp in real time the rapid "movement" of a map and the spatial political statement it bears, this carto-essay alludes to questions such as the possibilities for a cartographic academic public engagement, the importance of feeling cartographic data in the public sphere, and the opportunity to provide progressive cartographic imageries of the nation.