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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 = home
coming, and algos = pain, a pain for home. This map was created by Kathe Davidson, on a weekend
visit to her father Stefan Torau in January, 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.

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