Atlas of Palestine 1871-1877

Abstract

Juxtaposing the rigidity of the cartographer’s cartesian knowledge with the intimate tacit knowledge of the rastaman, Miller captures the complex and power-ridden dynamics of map-making. Whereas the cartographer aims to represent the place objectively ‘at a glance’, the rastaman opens our eyes to the unseen, unnameable, that which defies codification. But are the two worlds reconcilable? Salman Abu Sitta’s trilogy of atlases is an effort to do just that: to animate the cartographer’s map of Palestine with ‘the muddy affairs of the land’, to bring history and politics onto the map sheets, and to reinscribe the Palestinians — past, present, and future — onto the land. The first of Abu Sitta’s atlases was the Atlas of Palestine 1948 (2004), expanded into The Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966 (2010). The latter uses aerial photography and various twentieth century maps to present the geography of Palestine under the British Mandate, the Nakba and its aftermath. The second atlas, future-oriented, was the Return Journey Atlas (2007), which showed how the Palestinian refugees’ return is as feasible as it is just. His maps provide twelve routes for return, which constituted an early form of the genre of imagining the future of Palestine after liberation. Abu Sitta shows that return is materially and geographically possible. Although the Atlas does not address the political feasibility of such a plan, his invitation to imagine it is a political act that should not be overlooked. Abu Sitta’s latest work, The Atlas of Palestine 1871-1877, returns to earlier cartographic efforts in nineteenth-century Palestine. His maps are based on the 1870s maps of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), a London-based society established in 1865. While not the first effort to map Palestine in the modern era, having been preceded by French cartographer Pierre Jacotin’s first triangulation-based maps of Palestine during the 1799 Napoleonic invasion, the PEF’s work was the most comprehensive and systematic effort for its time. The British systematic mapping effort did not take place in isolation. It paralleled the growing British