Smithsonian Magazine has retracted a two-year-old article about an interactive online map describing indigenous lands in North America because the map “did not meet the standards of scholarship we expect of academic projects we cover as part of our editorial purview.”
The move followed sharp criticism from a pro-Israel group about a map produced by a nonprofit organization that formed the basis of the article.
The original article, published on Oct.13, 2022 and titled “This Interactive Map Shows Which Indigenous Lands You Live On,” was based on a map created by Native Land, a Canadian non-profit the article said “is focused on improving both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people’s relationship with the lands around them.” The article encouraged readers to use the map in order to see which Indigenous communities resided in their city, state, or zip code.
The article included an image of the map for North America — see the image at the top of this post — and linked to Native Land’s website with a map of the world.
In response to a request for comment, a magazine spokesperson told Retraction Watch: “A number of readers reached out to the Smithsonian with their concerns about the Native Lands map, specifically about its treatment of Israel.”
The retraction note on the article does not mention concerns about Israel, and a spokesperson said that would not change.
Native Land’s depiction of Israel on its website first drew attention from “Pens From Swords,” a pro-Israel WhatsApp activist group that organizes protests about anti-semitism and anti-Israel/-Zionism on social media and elsewhere online. It has been publicly aggressive in pressuring meeting venues to cancel meetings they consider Pro-Palestinian.
According to Pens From Swords, the group’s members believe Native Lands had “erased Israel” by placing “Palestine” over the outline of the current borders of the Jewish state.
Native Land did not respond to a request for comment. However, Aaron Carapella, an advisor to the group and owner of Tribal Nations Maps, criticized Smithsonian’s decision to retract the story. He told Retraction Watch in an email that he had not done any “work used by Native Land” for its online maps.
“However, my own work has been a victim of cancel culture as well,” he said. “The notion that the Smithsonian would claim their [Native Land] work is not ‘scholarly’ is code for ‘it wasn’t created by an academic from one our approved institutions.’”
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Leaving aside Israel, I absolutely hate maps like this. They’re completely ahistorical. They suggest native groups claimed every square inch of available space as their territory, which isn’t remotely true.
The weird thing about the map is that it shows many overlaps, but there’s no thought to how the full extent of the overlaps defeats the purpose of the map. I’ve seen scholars use this map to determine their land acknowledgements but it’s not scholarly.
Why do you say the pro Israeli group is aggressive? Shows bias and negativity towards the group. Is it “aggressive “ to stick up for the truth?
Yall going to retract RW now?
Apparently so. We live sad times.
The Arabic text for Palestine (فلسطين) is rendered backwards and without the letters connected. It is basically illegible to anyone who can actually read Arabic.
Archeology and DNA both say so called native Americans are descendants of Asian immigrants who crossed the Bering land bridge at the end of the last ice age. So the terms native or indigenous is nonsense. The only native land is Africa where we all evolved
The out of Africa theory has been debunked for quite a few years now
I’m curious about this claim. The most that I have read suggests that there were multiple migrations out of Africa, but I am not aware of anyone suggesting that Africa is not the source, ultimately, of homo sapiens.
At some future date, Israel will want all references to the 44,000 people it has recently murdered scrubbed from the internet. As for they Indian map, I’ve lived in Flagstaff for nearly 50 years. Where are the Navajos & Hopis?
The reference you are suggesting relies on and must cite the Health Ministry of Gaza (i.e. Hamas), which is the primary source for your figure. International agencies are regurgitating those numbers from this source.
Not directly an RW issue, but other estimates exceed 100,000. If you have better information, please share.
What are those other estimates? From where?
Brown University – Watson Institute:
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/Costs%20of%20War_Human%20Toll%20Since%20Oct%207.pdf
Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02508-0
The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext?ref=readthecatch.ca
Note the latter articles indicate the Gaza MoH data do have validity checks available.
You are not quoting “articles,” but rather news, communications, and opinion pieces. Both the Lancet correspondence and the Brown letter were written by well-known anti-Israel campaigners. Whatever the Gaza Health Ministry says, there are no “checks” on it. Most significantly, the 100,000 deceased statistic is not mentioned in any of your supporting references, with the exception of the Brown paper’s estimate of 100,000 children suffering from diarrhea, whatever that may be. Please provide the precise number of deaths—100,000—that you say your cited publications estimate.
The people are listed under tribal language, rather than English, names. Navajos are shown as Diné and Hopis are shown as Hopitutskwa.
I think you will find that number many people were Hamas combatants and people that Hamas combatants placed at risk.
The relevant point is the novel warfare not ever seen in history before that Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah started due repellent media support and persons with your thinking:
You win the less care you have for your own population, you loose the more care you have for your own population.
I wish you appreciate the civilization level you helped build Patrick McCabe.
Without Iron Dome the 30000 rockets fired against Israel could have killed thousands.
That fact that Israel saved thousands of persons lives is not news.
When Iran fired 400 missiles and drones and no one was killed, that was no relevant news for journalists.
Well no surprise that journalism is one of worst professions and its reputation is in taters.
The Arabic spelling of “Palestine” is backwards, from left to right. Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic writing goes from right to l left. Nobody noticed that?
Here is another intriguing map from PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases article: **From Fangs to Antidotes: A Scoping Review on Snakebite Burden, Species, and Antivenoms in the Eastern Mediterranean Region** by Ali Alshalah, David J. Williams, and Alessandra Ferrario.
You can find the article [here](https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0012200).
Interestingly, Israel is completely missing from the map, even though many other countries that are NOT included in the paper’s data are clearly marked. On the map Israel would be under “occupied territories, including East Jerusalem”. I am confident the authors will display excellent “grasping at straws” skills if challenged.
There is room for a comment there, if you wish to make one