Week 8 - Subversive and Radical Cartographies

Question 1

What do we mean by subversive and radical cartographies?

Answer 1

These are maps used for alternative political ambitions, deviating from the dominant political agendas.

Question 2

How have subversive and radical maps come to exist?

Answer 2

Maps have been widely explored for their contingent historical circumstances. A ‘true’ world map is widely contested. As a result, subversive and radical maps have come to exist in response e.g., GDP/capita and World Mapper.

It is a retrospectively applied term, used to term all the maps deviating from the norm.

Question 3

What are some example radical maps which present new visualities?

Answer 3

• CIA Flight Route Map
• Jai Sen (urban planner),
• University project (3C’s: Counter-cartographies collective) - tracking financial flows behind a policy decisions

Question 3

What are some examples of subversive and radical cartographic maps?

Answer 3

The Naked City, Debord - criticising the modern Parisian urban planning model post WW2.
Bill Bunge - public participation mapping.
Nuclear War Atlas

Question 4

What are two sub-categories of subversive and radical cartographies?

Answer 4

• community and participatory mapping
• indigenous cartographies (marking of ancestral heritage; visualise belonging) (“Maps with its’ parameters set by state and property, are not good at describing the world for those who do not subscribe to their ideas of rights to property etc)