Postmortem Mapping
Maps textualize and reify specific spatial power relations. For diasporic communities, maps legitimate both the roots and routes that define them as a diaspora. Joost Van Loon writes, “The ephemeral nature of everyday life makes full accounting impossible. What we are left with are traces, with which we can create maps and tell stories” (van Loon: 94). For communities of exile, maps as traces are the actualizations of performing a virtual place. Like photography, maps of towns no longer existing is a post-mortem engagement. They are created while inhabiting the visceral realms of nostalgia; understanding nostalgia from its etymological roots nostos= homecoming, and algos= pain, a pain for home. This map was created by Kathe Davidson, on a weekend visit to her father Stefan Torau in Janurary, 1997. It represents a particular type of post-mortem map making. Its validity can never be fully tested. Understanding radical as 'of or having roots' (Etymology Dictionary) maps of exiled homes are a form of radical cartography.