Aryana Soliz is a doctoral candidate in Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. For twelve years she worked as a project coordinator for various non-profit organizations in Canada and in Latin America. In 2017, she helped co-found the Concordia Ethnography Lab,an interdisciplinary initiative aimed at promoting innovative ethnographic research. Her doctoral research focuses on cycling infrastructures and mobility justice in small and intermediate cities. Her research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Blog post
Messing with maps
Why everyday histories matter to critical cartography
"If the world is complex and messy, then at least some of the time we’re going to have to give up on simplicities. But one thing is sure: if we want to think about the messes of reality at all then we’re going to have to teach ourselves to think, to practise, to relate, and to know in new ways."
— John Law, After Method: Mess in social research (2004)
Far from being neutral representations of geographic space, maps have a long and troubling history in colonial and post-colonial power relations. As Margaret Piece and Renee Louis (2008) explain: “The history of the mistranslation and misrepresentation of Indigenous cartographies into Western cartographies virtually defines the history of Western colonization and coercion of Indigenous peoples.”
These perspectives help to unsettle ideas that maps present a completely objective depiction of space. Instead of laying claim to ‘reality,’ maps can thus be understood as specific arguments about the world, assembled through a selective choice of content.
What is critical cartography?
Without denying the problematic histories and potential over-simplicities of maps, critical cartographers work to challenge dominant assumptions about geographic space. Critical, alternative and community cartographies help to enact mapping as a process, or a as verb rather than a noun. By including diverse and often overlooked perspectives, these approaches offer important counter-narratives or alternative arguments about the world. Community-based maps can also provide a creative medium to collectively reimagine urban futures.
Annette Kim (2015) elucidates: “By opening up who can make a map and the kinds of maps that are made, overlooked phenomena can be reclaimed, different perspectives can be made apparent, and new knowledge constructed.” In her spatial ethnography of Ho Chi Minh City (see image below), Kim and her research team helped to counter dominant narratives about street vendors who are continually evicted from sidewalks and invisibilized in official maps.
Representing histories of mobility through maps
In my research on cycling and pedestrian infrastructures, I often ask commuters to draw their travel routes as a part of the interview process. Rather than sketching over or referencing an official city map, I find that these alternative representations invaluable to understanding the different textures and challenges of commuting by foot and bicycle.
As our discussion loops over scribbles and through trajectories of movement, we gain insight into a diversity of meanings and histories of mobility that are often overlooked by mainstream urban planning and analysis.
I also find these methods helpful for students in urban anthropology and sociology, as they work to relate their urban-analysis and design assignments to their own everyday lived experiences.
What roles do maps and mapping play in your research or commuting experience? I will be work shopping an alternative cartography table — with a variety of mixed mapping materials — at the public scholars’ end-of-the-year event on April 8 from 5-7 p.m. at 4TH space (1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.). I look forward to hearing your ideas, seeing your experiences on paper and checking out the work of other public scholars!
About the author
