'Maps as Method' Sessions and 'The Future of the Map' Plenary

At last week's RGS-IBG Annual International Conference I co-organised three paper sessions and a plenary with my colleague Chris Perkins. The sessions were titled 'Maps as Method' and focused on showing how maps can make a positive difference to what we do, and that working through maps can be both creative and emancipatory.

The following 12 papers were presented over three sessions (abstracts for the papers are available here as a Word document).

Session 1:

• Mashup cartography for data exploration, presented by Aidan Slingsby;
  
• Tranquillity matters too - mapping tranquillity, presented by Duncan Fuller;
• Geography made by outsiders? Maps and the Google generation, presented by Paul Longley
• Teaching and learning the city through participatory mapping, presented by Kimberly Libman
  
• Mental mapping as a methodology, presented by Jen Gieseking

Session 2:

• Noise to signal ratio - mapping the boundaries of science as art and art as science, presented by Muki Haklay;
• Getting the words onto the map: walking interviews, rescue geography, presented by Phil Jones;
• Using maps creatively to more critically understand the creative city, presented by Chris Brennan-Horley;
• Interactive community mapping in London, presented by Coleen Whitaker;

Session 3:

• Local-scale vernacular geographies: what matters to whom, and how can we collect it? presented by Laura Green, Clare Davies;
• Cartography - a discipline of two halves, presented by Mike Smith;
• A Vision of Britain through Time: Publishing an on-line historical atlas for everyone, presented by Humphrey Southall;

In addition to the paper sessions we also organised a plenary discussion on 'the future of the map' with Ed Parsons (geospatial technologist for Google), Mary Spence (President of British Cartographic Association) and Denis Wood (indepedent cartography theorist and writer). This lively discussion as well as a good deal of media interest (sparked in part by a clever press release written by RGS!).