Cyber Badger Research Blog

The 'view from nowhere'? Spatial politics and cultural significance of high-resolution satellite imagery

The theme issue I have been co-editing with Chris Perkins is now officially published in Geoforum. There are five papers and a fairly lengthy introductory essay from us.

Geoforum, vol. 40, No. 4, July 2009

Edited by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00167185

1. Theme introduction: The 'view from nowhere'? Spatial politics and cultural significance of high-resolution satellite imagery
Martin Dodge, Chris Perkins
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.04.011

2. Walter Benjamin's Dionysian Adventures on Google Earth
Paul Kingsbury, John Paul Jones III
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.10.002

3. NGOs as intelligence agencies: The empowerment of transnational advocacy networks and the media by commercial remote sensing in the case of the Iranian nuclear program
Sean Aday, Steven Livingston
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.12.006

4. Placemarks and waterlines: Racialized cyberscapes in post-Katrina Google Earth
Michael Crutcher, Matthew Zook
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.01.003

5. Digging into Google Earth: An analysis of 'Crisis in Darfur'
Lisa Parks
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.04.004

6. Satellite imagery and the spectacle of secret spaces
Chris Perkins, Martin Dodge
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.04.012

Over the next few weeks I will post scans of some of the maps and plans we have featured in our 'Mapping Manchester' exhibition in the Rylands Library. To start with 'Wealth and Poverty' cabinet that focused on surveys and plans of housing conditions and new development schemes.

Sales map for the Oaks Estate, 1843
(Courtesy of Manchester City Library and Archives)

Wealth and Poverty

Manchester’s burst of population growth in the first half of the nineteenth century brought with it severe housing problems. By the 1840s the ‘Shock City’ became notorious for its slums.

Concerted efforts from social reformers to improve the housing of the poor can be seen in the cartographic results of their surveys. Richard Bastow’s survey in the late 1880s mapped out the age of housing as part of a sanitary campaign, and in 1904 a report on housing conditions, produced by The Citizens’ Association of Manchester, included a detailed map of housing quality. The areas of worst housing were shaded in dark colours, and the map shows a cluster which almost completely encircles the commercial core of the city. (A nice online interface to this map is availabile here.)

From the mid-nineteenth century private estates of substantial suburban villas were constructed, away from the poverty and crime of the inner neighbourhoods, for the affluent beneficiaries of Manchester’s industrial prosperity. An example of these developments can be seen in the sales map for the Oaks Estate, planned in 1843 (shown above). In its bucolic design, individual houses are arranged in their own wooded grounds with curving driveways. The area of Oaks Estate is now occupied by the, not quite so elite, Owens Park student halls of residence of the University of Manchester!

Our exhibition Mapping Manchester is now open to the public in Rylands Library. The photo above shows the invited guests to the 'private view' from Wednesday evening, with the Reading Room lit up in bright sunshine. (Photograph taken by Antonio da Cruz.)

Some details on the exhibition are given in the press release to promote it to the media. BBC Manchester have featured a slideshow of images from the exhibition, including the city centre map from the 1945 Plan.

A couple of pictures of display cabinets in our Mapping Manchester exhibition from the initial fit out. Above is part of the 'city and the car' cabinet and below is the 'industry' one. The exhibition opens on Thursdays 25th June.

Some more information on my Mapping Manchester exhibition is given in this leaflet. Download a PDF version from here.

For the last few months I have been putting together a public exhibition with my colleague Chris Perkins. The exhibition is entitled Mapping Manchester: Cartographic Stories of the City and it is due to open on the 25th June 2009. The promo poster image is shown above.

The aim of exhibition is to reveal some of the ways in which mapping is ingrained into urban life. It seeks to demonstrates how maps work and change over time in response to technology, society and economic imperatives, highlighting visually striking cartographic representations of Manchester. It showcases the wealth of cartographic ‘treasures’ held by the University of Manchester and other institutions in the city, including generous loans of materials from the Manchester City Library and Archives and Chetham’s Library. The maps exhibited are more than just ‘pretty pictures’: they are powerful tools instrumental in the making of the contemporary Manchester, and can be read as rich stories of urban life.

The exhibition is being held in the Reading Room of the John Rylands Library on Deansgate in the central Manchester.