Cartography III

In this third report, I focus on cognitive cartography in order to examine how the historical division between empiricist and critical approaches in cartography has shifted recently. I do so by building on Kitchin and Dodge’s argument (2007) that parts of the apparent disjuncture within cartography might be resolved through a greater focus on emergent approaches to mapping as a process, which is the core idea of post-representational cartography. By looking at cognitive cartography from a post-representational perspective I emphasize two major trends. On the one hand, the processual positioning of post-representational cartography simply shifts the historical line of divide, since it inherently disqualifies any cognitive studies that artificially dissociate the map from its context of use and production. On the other hand, by enabling the combination of critical positioning with empiricist practices, post-representational cartography offers opportunities to revisit in practical terms the tensions between these two approaches. It provides an original framework to envision our mental, emotional and embodied relationships with maps and with places through maps, and has the potential to bring cartography into a new arena in which the empiricist/critical divide could be transcended.