Maps, measurements, and landmines: the global landmines crisis and the politics of development

The humanitarian impact of landmines was well publicised during the 1990s. The efforts by nongovernmental organisations during this decade led to an international treaty banning the production, stockpiling, and use of antipersonnel landmines. Since the late 1990s a series of important changes have occurred in the management and coordination of humanitarian demining, which are associated with the emergence of a new development discipline for those affected by landmines. I suggest that these changes have important implications for the exercise of power. I also argue, however, that this development discourse is being repoliticised through a process of 'cadastral politics'.