From the cartographic gaze to contestatory cartographies

Rene Descartes declared in the 16th Century that the world was now dominated by the visual, a notion that would be seen as defining the Enlightenment (Descartes, cited in Potts, 2015). As the increased dominance of seeing and the desire to visualise the world cohered with the production of increasingly accurate tools of measurement and the advent of the printing press, cartography emerged as a discipline, often used as tool of oppression and dominance. Cartographic visualizations, afforded the creator, and user, a Gods eye view of the world. Following others (See Casas-Cortés et. al., 2013; Koch, 1998), this chapter refers to this way of seeing the world from above as the Cartographic Gaze. First, the chapter briefly examines the historical emergence of the Cartographic Gaze before turning to a discussion about how the proliferation of geographic imaging technologies and digital tools simultaneously further embedded this gaze into mapping practice, while also diffusing such practices of mapping to broader populations. Discussing the rise of participatory mapping and counter mapping under the rubric of contestatory cartographies, the chapter presents some of the challenges that face those attempting to create alternative maps of their worlds, and the ways in which they become entrapped by the pervasiveness of the Cartographic Gaze. We use the term participatory mapping to refer to methodologies for map-making based around the participation of those who the map will represent. And we employ the term counter mapping to reference those mapping practices that explicitly seek to expose and challenge power relations. In specific, we look at how the colonizing origins of the Cartographic Gaze limit what it is possible to do with these alternative mapping practices

Thermal Dileptons from Hot and Dense Strongly Interacting Matter

The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied muon-pair production in 158A GeV In-In collisions. The unprecedented precision of the data has allowed to isolate a strong excess of pairs above the known sources in the whole invariant mass region 0.2<M<2.6 GeV. The (mostly) Planck-like shape of the mass spectra, exponential m_T spectra, zero polarization and the general agreement with thermal-model results allow for a consistent interpretation of the excess dimuons as thermal radiation from a randomized system. For M<1 GeV, the process pi+pi- -> rho -> mu+mu- dominates. The associated space-time averaged rho spectral function shows a nearly diverging width in approaching chiral symmetry restoration, but essentially no shift in mass. Some in-medium effects are also seen for the omega, but not for the phi. For M>1 GeV, the average temperature associated with the mass spectrum is about 200 MeV, considerably above T_c=170 MeV, implying a transition to dominantly partonic emission sources in this region. The transition itself is mirrored by a large jump-like drop in the inverse slope of the transverse mass spectra around 1 GeV.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of Chiral 2010 (Valencia, June 21-24, 2010

Experimental Conference Summary

Experimental summary talk given at International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2001), Stony Brook, New York, 15-20 Jan 2001.Comment: Proceedings of a summary talk given at International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2001), Stony Brook, New York, 15-20 Jan 200

Structure and Representation Theory for Double Group of Four-Dimensional Cubic Group

Hypercubic groups in any dimension are defined and their conjugate classifications and representation theories are derived. Double group and spinor representation are introduced. A detailed calculation is carried out on the structures of four-dimensional cubic group $O_4$ and its double group, as well as all inequivalent single-valued representations and spinor representations of $O_4$. All representations are derived adopting Clifford theory of decomposition of induced representations. Based on these results, single-valued and spinor representations of the orientation-preserved subgroup of $O_4$ are calculated.Comment: 38 pages, 7 tables. LaTex. Combined version of hep-lat/0010024 and hep-lat/001002

Did You Find the World or Did You Make it Up? Media, Communications and Geography in the Digital Age

Geography, media, and communications have been closely linked since the 16th Century. Just as the advent of the printing press and new modes of measurement changed the media landscape, so too did it change that of geography and cartography. Now, in the digital age we are presented with ever more instruments of measurement (big data, algorithms, UGC, VGI etc.), ever more far-reaching versions of the printing press (Web 2.0, Social Media etc.), and the waters are muddied further by the development of participatory-GIS systems, and the (re-)birth of Neogeography which purportedly offers up a challenge to the status quo. Thus, it becomes essential that, just as we might question the 16th century map-makers, we must now question data analytics, algorithms and their architects, as well as the tools used to communicate these new spaces. The bringing together of the theories of Geography and of Media and Communications allows for an alternate, nuanced, and a spatially grounded approach to envisioning the myriad ways in which the digital age mediates social, economic and political experiences and, in particular, in the increasingly technologically informed media and communications sector, allowing us to ask, ‘did you find the world or did you make it up?’

Geographic Protest: The Role of Counter-Mapping in Supporting Campaigns Against Large-Scale Extractive Projects in Colombia: The Case of La Colosa

In a few short years, social movements in Cajamarca, Colombia, were able to convince a once divided community to near-unanimously reject establishment of the world’s largest gold mine on their doorstep. This paper examines the role of contestatory cartography in achieving this remarkable result. It explores the range of mapping and counter-mapping tools used by movements in the region, showing how a combination of classic GIS and more neogeographical tools have been used to counter the mining project from both a legal and social standing. While the paper also finds hierarchies of control are still in place and not eroded by participatory mapping activities, it also suggests that counter-mapping and the involvement of the community in exploring their own landscape was crucial to the rejection of AngloGold Ashanti’s La Colosa project

Topping up the Trust Fund: restoring public confidence in science (part 3 of a 3 part article)

In a post-truth era, five academics consider strategies, from inviting laypeople into the laboratory to open vivas, to improve trust in expert

The codification of local knowledges through digital cartographic artefacts: A Case study of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, affectionately known as HOT, worked on mapping the city of Dar es Salaam between 2014 and 2020. The efforts of HOT were designed to not only build a map of the city that would ‘put people on the map’, but to also use these maps to aid in development and humanitarian interventions through one of Africa’s fastest growing cities, all while using participatory mapping practices. This thesis examines the extent to which HOT has been able to achieve the creation of a new map of Dar es Salaam, the influence this map had on development projects, and the degree to which the map was built using participatory methods. The research undertook a deep analysis of map completion and accuracy and used interviews to explore the interplay between technology and micro/macro politics around the mapping of Dar es Salaam. Findings suggest that HOT is still underdeveloped as an organization and lacks the maturity to create true participatory models of working. That many of their practices were exclusionary to the local population and that weak management structures and procedures allowed colonial and ‘outsider’ saviour complexes to grow within the organisation. The work concludes by noting that HOT has begun to change many of its practices since 2020 where this research ends

The Issue of Blogging: Using Visual Network Analysis to go Beyond Self-reporting Studies of Blogging

Given the increasingly prominent position of digital technologies in the Higher Education classroom, this paper uses a mixed method approach to explore the ways in which blogging might be used to support student learning through a large MA dissertation module, comprising students from five courses. Taking as it impetuous the idea that blogging can create a community to support students in the writing of their own dissertation. The research saw 179 students invited to undertake blogging over a 10-week period, with proscribed activities for eight of these weeks. The networks built by students were modelled through Gephi, and this data was supplemented with two surveys carried out before and following the module. The results showed a mild trend towards the blogs not producing a community, nor creating an environment in which self-reflective practice was forthcoming. The role of the teacher also appeared to become solidified as the sole motivating factor, leading to a low uptake in posting on the blog, and even lower in commenting. The work also highlights the two-fold issue of students being fearful of giving negative, coupled with the sense that peer feedback was not worth as much as staff feedback, significantly reduced the development of the community, and of critical thinking. The work concludes that while blogs might have some potential, this case demonstrates that they need to be more deeply embedded within the pedagogy of the course, and not used as an ‘add-on’