Cartographer William Rankin, author of Radical Cartography, in an interview with Mike Higgins of Chatham House:
We do not live in a jigsaw-puzzle world, even in the straightforward sense of what sovereignty currently means. In the US context, consider American Indian reservations: tribal sovereignty is taken seriously by both Indigenous peoples and the federal government, yet the Supreme Court has long held that Congress retains ultimate authority over those sovereign nations. State boundaries sometimes run straight through reservations. These are places not subject to state jurisdiction, yet they sit inside states. Showing the contradictions of actual sovereignty as it exists is important.
There’s another level too. Even within territories where a state makes a uniform claim to sovereignty – within the US or anywhere else – the territory is not homogeneous. There are vast differences in population, resources, climate and the practical reach of state power. Cartography ought to be helping us think about those realities, rather than simply presenting the international system as an abstract arrangement of autonomous jigsaw pieces.
Maps are political and borders are made up.