Mapping Stories: Why Do Geographers Make Maps?

Hello, I have put together a double session of papers for the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference this summer in Manchester. The sessions are co-organised with Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crampton. The aim is to bring together papers about the processes underpinning spatial knowledge claims. They marry local storytelling to a critical and contextual emphasis on how and why geographers make, and have made maps. And equally why some geographers don’t make maps anymore.

The papers are listed below and the short abstracts are available here.

Session one:

1. From Cartography to Neogeography
Steve Chilton

2. Reconstructing the Map: Post-communist Cartographic Identities in Latvia and Slovenia
Alex Kent, Department of Geography, University of Southampton

3. Mapping the Everyday
Sarah West, Community Scientist- OPAL (Open-Air Laboratories) Stockholm Environment, Institute University of York

4. Uneasy Cartographies: Practicing Participatory Mapping and Critical Geography within the Academy
Sarah Elwood, Department of Geography, University of Washington

5. Database Ethnographies: Using Social Science Methodologies to Enhance Data Analysis and Interpretation
Nadine Schuurman, Geography, Simon Fraser University

Session two:

1. Trends and Approaches in Cartographic Textbooks and Teaching
David Forrest, Dept of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow

2. Mapping as Tools in Critical Thinking and Engagement with Principles of Social Justice: Stories from Montserrat and Singapore
Tracey Skelton, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

3. Elements of Ludic Cartography: Videogame Design Laid Bare
Ifan D H Shepherd, Middlesex University, London, UK

4. Maps, Minds, and Mysteries
Stanley D. Brunn, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky