Space, Culture and Society (SCaS)
Maps and Society
Research projects
Mapping Manchester
An ongoing strand of our research involves constructing a comprehensive history of cartography in governing city life, evaluating how representations of space, such as infrastructure plans, transport maps and construction schematics are enrolled into the production of urbanity. Manchester is the focus for the empirical data and analysis. A initial output is the public exhibition Mapping Manchester: Cartographic Stories of the City (Rylands Library, June 2009 - March 2010).
The research is being undertaken by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins, and assistance from the map library staff in the Rylands Library. Much effort is being directed at various institutional archives related the city of Manchester and the surrounding region including the Central Reference Library, Chetham’s Library and the Greater Manchester County Record Office. It has been supported with small grants from Manchester Geographical Society and a JB Harley Fellowship in the History Cartography.
Further reading
- Mapping Manchester exhibition e-catalogue (PDF, 5200KB)
- Mapping Manchester web exhibition created by the Ryland’s Library team
- Mapping Manchester Project is a developing project page that will provide links to various mapping materials relating to Manchester. At moment the major resource is a set of plans and maps related to the early history of the Manchester Ship Canal.
Community Mapping
Initiated by the Joint Health Unit of Manchester City Council in 2004, the project ran for two years.
The aim was to bring people back in to mapping by initiating community involvement in the creation of new maps of the city of Manchester, as part of an ongoing mapping process. Community Mapping is a reaction against:
- badly designed maps;
- top down mapping reflecting the needs of decision makers rather than people;
- the dominant role of the private motor car in cities;
- unhealthy lifestyles;
- a consultancy culture that values product over process.
Further reading
- Chris Perkins and Anna Z.Thomson Mapping for health: cycling and walking maps of the city, North West Geography
Cartographies of Cyberspace
Cyberspace cartographies have been an important areas of
creativity in contemporary map-making, with experimentation with visual
metaphors, survey methods, data sources, and, novel forms of user interaction
with map representations. The research has focused on cataloguing and
critiquing ‘maps of cyberspace’ that
represents the structures and operations of cyberspace infrastructure; and
questioning the workability and politics of ‘maps for cyberspace’ designed
for navigation through the virtual spaces of cyberspaces.
Further reading
- Atlas of Cyberspace (Addison-Wesley, 2001).
- New cartographies to chart cyberspace (PDF), GeoInformatics.
- Mapping Cyberspace (Routledge, 2000).