POSTCOLONIAL COUNTER-MAPPING AND INDIGENOUS SPACE IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART

Abstract

Postcolonial scholarship increasingly recognizes space as a crucial site of power and resistance; however, the cartographic dimensions of African literary texts remain underexplored. Accordingly, this study examines how Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart represents indigenous Igbo geography as a form of counter-mapping that challenges colonial spatial rationalization. The study aims to analyze how indigenous spatial knowledge functions as literary counter-mapping and, moreover, to examine how colonial cartographic practices reshape cultural boundaries and generate epistemic conflict. A qualitative, interpretive design is adopted, employing close textual analysis integrated with postcolonial theory and critical cartography; furthermore, relevant scholarly sources are examined to contextualize spatial representation within decolonial geography. Findings indicate that Achebe constructs space as culturally embedded, spiritually grounded, and socially regulated; consequently, indigenous geography operates as a mode of resistance. Colonial institutions, however, impose rigid spatial hierarchies and reconfigure lived environments into controllable territories; as a result, epistemic conflict emerges between indigenous and Western knowledge systems. The study also demonstrates that narrative strategies—such as proverbs, oral discourse, and insider perspective—function as alternative cartographies; moreover, the novel itself acts as a literary map that preserves marginalized spatial knowledge. Overall, spatial representation in Things Fall Apart constitutes a central mechanism of colonial domination and indigenous resilience; therefore, the novel emerges as a foundational text in literary counter-cartography. Future research should integrate literary studies with critical geography and, besides this, conduct comparative analyses of other African and postcolonial texts to further explore spatial resistance and decolonial knowledge production.