Peluso defines counter-mapping as the appropriation of cartographic technologies by groups whose territorial claims have been suppressed or erased by official maps. The iconic operation is political inversion: sketch maps, GPS coordinates and planning maps are mobilised to translate customary resource relations into forms legible to states, NGOs and international institutions. Yet the article refuses an uncomplicated narrative of empowerment. Mapping may contest state authority, reinsert settlements into resource representations and challenge spatial homogenisation, but it can also freeze flexible customary practices, harden boundaries and generate new gatekeepers around technical knowledge. The map is therefore both instrument and transformation of the claim it represents. Peluso’s wider theoretical contribution lies in treating representation as territorial action rather than neutral depiction. Counter-mapping connects critical cartography, political ecology and legal pluralism, while anticipating participatory GIS debates: spatial technologies redistribute visibility and authority, but their emancipatory force depends on who controls categories, scale, access, revision and the right to redraw.