Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Arguably one of the foundational techniques of globalisation, cartography and mapping have produced knowledge about the world from its earliest moments of human occupation. Map-making is tied intricately to our desire, as humans, to understand the world around us, and our place within it. While undeniably a form of knowledge bound intimately to western science, Europe’s age of exploration, and the rise of an interconnected modern world, maps have been created historically (conventionally on paper) as a quintessential declaration of colonial power and domination; however, they have in other contexts and using other media, been produced as expressions of identity, belonging, and resistance. This has never been more apparent than in contemporary times, when digital mapping has become the go-to technology and mode of information-sharing for all kinds of projects, in all kinds of media classes and contexts. From the war-torn neighbourhoods of Aleppo, Syria, through the mid-twentieth century massacre of Algerians in Paris, from the hidden histories of lynching in America, and of gay people in St Louis, to the potential economic impacts of climate change across North American cities and urban precincts, interactive maps (most often based on GIS technology) of various degrees of complexity, are available in real time across the Internet, giving web-site visitors many layers of information at a single sitting. Many of these mapping projects align with some form of social and spatial justice objective, and describe initiatives aimed at redress and recuperation. This paper offers a synthesis of some of these global projects, and discusses their relevance for an embryonic digital mapping project being planned for Johannesburg, South Africa. Called JoziQuest, this project aims to make visible the intricacies of space and memory in a city that remains structured by legacies of apartheid and exclusionary urban planning, which continue to haunt governance in the present.