AP/SOSC 3719 3.00

Mapping The City

How is the city visually known? Visual representations can tell us much about urban places that traditional social science modes of analysis fail to communicate about socio-spatial relations. The aim of this course is to critically understand maps as visual communication instruments and as social constructions of reality anchored in practices and systems of power. In this course we go beyond normative models of cartography that necessitates thinking about maps as tools to delineate territories but as representations produced in specific cultural, political, and historical contexts. This course explores conceptual issues of representation, meaning, and the various ways of formally and informally representing the city, including historical and contemporary map-making, exploring spatial technologies from GIS to graffiti. Students will engage with alternative mapping exercises that seek to dismantle cartographic practices that reinforce hegemonic power structures and ways of thinking, such as counter-maps, participatory mapping, feeling maps, and using mobile devices to document urban practices and provide new insights on socio-spatial relations in the digital age.