Feminist cartography and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality: Emotional responses to three thematic maps

Thematic maps facilitate spatial understanding of patterns and exceptions. Cognitive ability, spatial cognition, and emotional state are related, yet there is little research about map readers’ emotions. Feminist critiques of cartography recognize emotion and affect as legitimate experiences on par with quantitative ways of knowing. We conducted an online survey to measure users’ affective states before and after engaging with three thematic map types. The maps showed data from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality, on the proportion of girls and women aged 15 to 49 who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting. Participants viewed a choropleth, a cartogram, and a repeating icon tile map; completed map-related tasks; rated certain map qualities; rated their affective states before and after engaging with the maps; and answered open-ended questions. The maps piqued curiosity and evoked emotions for most users, while some users perceived the thematic maps as clinical or neutral despite the sensitive topic. After viewing the maps, female participants who were affected expressed deeper engagement in their open-ended comments than males. Traditionally, cartography construes the human experience as male experience and denies or trivializes women's experiences. Our findings corroborate feminist critiques of this disembodiment and entrenched rational rhetoric of maps.     

Model Uncertainty in Matrix Exponential Spatial Growth Regression Models

This article considers the most important aspects of model uncertainty for spatial regression models, namely, the appropriate spatial weight matrix to be employed and the appropriate explanatory variables. We focus on the spatial Durbin model (SDM) specification in this study that nests most models used in the regional growth literature, and develop a simple Bayesian model‐averaging approach that provides a unified and formal treatment of these aspects of model uncertainty for SDM growth models. The approach expands on previous work by reducing the computational costs through the use of Bayesian information criterion model weights and a matrix exponential specification of the SDM model. The spatial Durbin matrix exponential model has theoretical and computational advantages over the spatial autoregressive specification due to the ease of inversion, differentiation, and integration of the matrix exponential. In particular, the matrix exponential has a simple matrix determinant that vanishes for the case of a spatial weight matrix with a trace of zero. This allows for a larger domain of spatial growth regression models to be analyzed with this approach, including models based on different classes of spatial weight matrices. The working of the approach is illustrated for the case of 32 potential determinants and three classes of spatial weight matrices (contiguity‐based, k‐nearest neighbor, and distance‐based spatial weight matrices), using a data set of income per capita growth for 273 European regions.     

Creating Mosquitia: mapping Amerindian spatial practices in eastern Central America, 1629–1779

By examining the spatial practices of Mosquito Indians, this paper contends that colonial maps reflect the activities of colonized peoples. Situated between the Spanish and British empires in eastern Central America, the Mosquito carved out an independent kingdom for themselves between 1629 and 1779, and far beyond. My argument is that many period maps respond to, and re-present, Mosquito spatial practices. I define a spatial practice as any political feat, economic activity, forceful claim, or social performance that asserts and demonstrates authority over people and space. Through a chronological and thematic reconstruction of primary documents, my objective is to show that colonial subjects in general, and the Mosquito in particular, can and do contribute to their own spatialized representations through their actions and discourses. Without Mosquito spatial practices, there would have been no Mosquitia to map, only some other place.     

Interpreting urban space through cognitive map sketching and sequence analysis

Traditionally, analysis of sketch maps of urban areas has focused on the interpretation of hand‐drawn renditions of features that are most familiar to individuals. Few researchers have investigated the sequence that sketchers use to identify features on the urban landscape and how these features are linked together to form a coherent ‘picture’ of an area. This article builds upon previous research by exploring the sequential pattern of sketch map creation. Two research questions are proposed, namely, can a repetitive sequential order in element inclusion be identified for different individuals sketching the same urban environment? If so what features are mapped in which order to create the sketchers' image of the city? Findings suggest that three distinct groups of cognitive maps exist, namely, sequential, spatial and hybrid, and that the map elements of each group are organised in a distinctive manner with paths and landmarks as principal elements. It is suggested that insights into this process provide more substance to understanding how individuals interpret and structure urban space and use this information to navigate both known and new environments.     

GeoDa : An Introduction to Spatial Data Analysis

This article presents an overview of GeoDa™, a free software program intended to serve as a user-friendly and graphical introduction to spatial analysis for non-geographic information systems (GIS) specialists. It includes functionality ranging from simple mapping to exploratory data analysis, the visualization of global and local spatial autocorrelation, and spatial regression. A key feature of GeoDa is an interactive environment that combines maps with statistical graphics, using the technology of dynamically linked windows. A brief review of the software design is given, as well as some illustrative examples that highlight distinctive features of the program in applications dealing with public health, economic development, real estate analysis, and criminology.     

基于旅华美国游客手绘认知地图的中国旅游目的地意象研究

手绘认知地图是典型的非结构化的研究方法,以旅游为主题的手绘认知地图能够深入的探索旅游者对目的地人、地方或事物所持有的意象,尤其在跨文化的研究中独具意义.本研究通过客流跟踪的调研方式,获得了我国八个主要入境旅游城市美国团队游客的手绘认知地图。在此资料基础上从空间认知元素和空间认知结构两方面对跨文化旅游者目的地意象进行了分析,并讨论了其相对于居民城市意象的共性和个性。最后,发现跨文化旅游者目的地意象认知元素因旅游主题性而超越了城市的一般物质形态,空间认知符号化特征显著,并且呈现出明显的尺度差异。     

THEORETICAL REQUISITES FOR THE MAPPING OF THE HUMAN HABITAT

Some general theoretical principles guiding thematic mapping are stated in connection with a long-term program for mapping the environment of Siberia. Environment, in this context, is understood in the broad sense of human habitat, comprising physical environment, population and economy. The author views cartography as a branch of information science, and stresses the importance of the system approach to the compilation of environment maps, which in the case of physical maps would involve the principles of geosystems theory. An effort should be made to show spatial linkages, which are regarded as the principal function of environment maps. Of particular relevance are synthetic landscape maps and predictive maps, showing the dynamic trends of geographical phenomena. The informativeness of thematic maps can be increased by preliminary data processing yielding coefficients of correlation and regression lines, which would then be mapped.     

Present Problems in Soviet Cartography and the Tasks of the Geographical Society

After having long existed as a technical discipline serving the needs of geographers, cartography in the Soviet Union has become increasingly a research discipline involving many common interests with geography. Collaboration between cartographers and geographers is becoming increasingly essential as more attention is being given to thematic cartography involving not only particular disciplines (geomorphology, economic geography, population geography) but what may be called an integrated “geographical” cartography. Much effort continues to be devoted in the Soviet Union to the compilation of regional atlases and to a wide range of thematic maps. Increasing attention is being given to the production of evaluative maps, assessing the potential use of the physical environment and natural resources. School maps represent a major part of Soviet map production. Tourist and hiking maps need to be seriously improved.     

Mental maps of global regions: identifying and characterizing “hard” and “soft” regions

ABSTRACT

This article presents the quantitative synthesis of mental maps that identify different types of world regions. It is the result of a large-scale survey conducted in 18 countries, based on a sketch map approach. The number, shape, and extension of these vernacular world regions vary according to countries, cultures, and the personal styles of respondents who drew the maps. However, when we collectively analyze the regions identified by respondents, we observe that the figures of global regions are more or less recurrent. While the most commonly used division of the world is into “continents”, we can identify “hard” and “soft” regions of the world. Whereas a “hard” region, such as Africa, can be recognized relatively unambiguously as a continent, “soft” regions may include numerous regional distinctions such as East Asia, Russia, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Our methodology involves defining a set of characteristics that discriminate between “hard” and “soft” regions (measuring spatial uncertainty and the relative vagueness of limits and fringes), then accounting for the correlation of these areas on the world map.     

THE PRESENT STATE AND TASKS OF COMPLEX MAPPING IN THE USSR

Recent developments in the Soviet Union's program of national thematic mapping and regional complex mapping are reviewed. A comprehensive mapping program along these lines, formulated in 1969 by GUGK, the government planning agency, has not been implemented. National thematic maps in the Soviet Union continue to be compiled by individual government agencies without coordination and without uniformity in legend and design, so that comparability is made difficult. The only thematic GUGK maps now being prepared are concerned with two long-term regional development programs in the Soviet Union–the rural development plan for the Nonchernozem zone of the European RSFSR and the construction of the Baykal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad in the Soviet Far East. The need for a comprehensive and coordinated program of national thematic maps and regional atlases or map series is once again stressed in connection with economic planning and environmental problems, and a program of continuously updated regional atlases, based on digital data banks, is proposed. Suggestions are also made for the coordination of thematic maps at the international level.     

Set-determined Process and the Growth of Spatial Structure

We present an analysis of the effects of different information flow patterns on the growth of spatial structure in a broad class of systems. Examples are drawn from plant and message diffusion processes, the growth of herding in animal populations and, in particular, the evolution of cities in human populations. We model the actions of an “individual” as a response to gradients in a transformation of the “real” space, this transformation being the individual's information map of the space. Interesting deductions occur as a result of allowing the individual's information map to vary from extremely local to extremely global. In the city growth model for example, if migration decisions are based upon extremely local information, then the system is characterized by instability and the lack of any well-defined spatial structure. As the localness of this information map decreases, the system is characterized by the development of well defined spatial structure with a characteristic distance separating the “cities.” In a particular case, we show that the wavelength of the dominant spatial structure is directly related to the size of an individual's information field. These effects are a consequence of interactions between individuals that arise from the nonlocalness of the information fields. We interpret the early growth stages in these models in terms of linear filters.     

Local indicators for categorical data: impacts of scaling decisions

When the geographic distribution of landscape pattern varies, global indices fail to capture the spatial nonstationarity within the dataset. Methods that measure landscape pattern at a spatially local scale are advantageous, as an index is computed at each point in the dataset. The geographic distribution of local indices is used to discover spatial trends. Local indicators for categorical data (LICD) can be used to statistically quantify local spatial patterns in binary geographic datasets. LICD, like other spatially local methods, are impacted by decisions relating to the spatial scale of the data, such as the data grain (p), and analysis parameters such as the size of the local neighbourhood (m). The goal of this article is to demonstrate how the choice of the m and p parameters impacts LICD analysis. We also briefly discuss the impacts spatial extent can have on analysis; specifically the local composition measure. An example using 2006 forest cover data for a region in British Columbia, Canada where mountain pine beetle mitigation and salvage harvesting has occurred is used to show the impacts of changing m and p. Selection of local window size (m = 3,5,7) impacts the prevalence and interpretation of significant results. Increasing data grain (p) had varying effects on significant LICD results. When implementing LICD the choice of m and p impacts results. Exploring multiple combinations of m and p will provide insight into selection of ideal parameters for analysis.     

Creating Ecologically Based Land Use and Habitat Maps Quickly and Cheaply to Support Conservation Planning at Local Scales: A New Zealand Example

Effective planning to support and enhance ecological values in sites of conservation interest requires accurate, comprehensive and detailed ecologically based maps and data, not only for the conservation site but for the wider landscape in which such sites are situated. In this paper we present an efficient and low cost method for combining appropriate technologies and available data to produce such maps at a landscape level. This method is described and evaluated using a case study of a land use and habitat map, with an associated geographic information system (GIS). The map was created for the district of Dunedin, New Zealand, an area of approximately 3340 km². This paper demonstrates how the map can be adapted for use by small, locally based conservation organisations that typically do not have the resources to obtain detailed, consistent and comprehensive spatial data for the areas they manage. The example of Orokonui Ecosanctuary is used to illustrate the potential applications of the map including mapping assets and habitats within a site and for exploring the relationship between the Ecosanctuary's internal and external habitats. External habitats can form a vital habitat network for many of the endangered species being reintroduced into the Ecosanctuary as well as a source of threats through potential reinvasion by pests and land use change. Though the mapping method presented in this paper is not necessarily new, it demonstrates the potential for utilising advances in mapping techniques and available data sets to offer a pragmatic support mechanism of practical value for small conservation organisations.     

The Map,the Other and the public visual image

This article explores the connection between Cartography and Otherness, and intersects map and visual studies with the question of racial/ethnic identity. With the aim of making arguments through images, a visual/verbal text is staged to reflect on the ‘Map-Other’ connection in past and present times. Inspired by the epistemological turn from representation towards practice currently experienced within map theory, the article interrogates the various creative ways in which art, advertising, public communication and related fields enable post-representational ways of portraying maps. Public visual images of cartography can be read not only as an exposure of the firm, ideological meaning of maps, but also as illustrations of how maps work as shared, embodied and empowering objects. The treatment of maps as socialised, performed and relational thereby results in an involvement of Others as protagonists rather than subjects.     

Exploring cultural geography field course using story maps

This article explores the use of Story Maps in a cultural geography field course that uses a place-based approach to understand the Delta Blue’s culture. In this study, Story Maps was used to capture and map student experiences as they engaged in a field study. Student experiences are captured by incorporating different data mediums such as narratives, personal reflections, digital photos, videos and website. Such a project has the potential to challenge students to work collectively and present a coherent story of their field experiences. This, in turn, can be used to improve the design and experience of a field course. The study demonstrates that the availability of simple web-based mapping platform such as Story maps provides students the ability to harness technology to create geocoded narratives, visual representations and spatial documentation to map their field course experience.     

On the Spatial Dynamics of Democratic Politics: Analysing the Bolivian Case

After an initial discussion of the ‘diverse spaces of democracy’, which sets out the main points of the author's approach to democratic politics, this article considers three perspectives on the relations between governmental decentralization and territorial democracy in Latin America. These two interrelated sections provide a thematic and conceptual background to a more specific treatment of the development and dynamics of decentralization in the Bolivian case. In examining the decentralization process in Bolivia, the article highlights the two spatial modes of this process — the regional and the local — and includes an appraisal of the relation between both modes and the nature of democratic politics.     

‘I've had it with them!’ Younger migrant women's spatial practices of conformity and resistance

This article examines how younger migrant women from Turkey maneuver the public and private spaces of their everyday lives in a neighborhood in Germany, and how they challenge and affirm the patriarchal practices and gender norms that husbands, fathers, and older migrant women seek to impose within and outside private homes. Younger migrant women selectively comply with gendered and generational norms of veiling and dress, while at the same time also reworking gender roles, and avoiding and transgressing masculinist spaces. Younger migrant women's practices and spatial representations in mental maps reveal the complex entanglements of compliances and resistance, and dispel simple assumptions of being overwhelmingly victimized by their potentially violent men that are so prominent in contemporary Western societies.     

Some Achievements and Problems in Soviet Cartography

A review of the last 50 years finds that the traditional breakdown of Soviet cartography into its specialized research disciplines no longer conforms to current needs. Soviet cartography has been divided historically into mathematical cartography, map science (the study of maps and their uses), map compilation and editing, map design and production. A growing specialization in cartography by thematic disciplines (geomorphic mapping, agricultural mapping, etc.) with widely differing requirements and principles of compilation and editing suggests the need for a restructuring of the research disciplines. In addition to mathematical cartography, concerned with map projections and map measurements, the new structure would include: technical cartography (the study of source materials, map design and production); natural-historic cartography (principles of compilation and editing of maps of the physical environment), and socioeconomic cartography (concerned with the mapping of human phenomena).     

Reality versus Policy: The Delineation and Testing of Local Labour Market and Spatial Policy Areas

As part of the empirical planning science, this article integrates theory, empirical findings and policy. It first deals with the question how to reach a theoretically well-grounded and empirical applicable delineation of local labour market areas. An inductive classification method is selected based on the behaviour of individual commuters without selecting a priori central places. By this, new urban forms like polynodality are included. In using this method for the Netherlands, 31 local labour market areas (LLAs) were distinguished. Moreover, the article elaborates some simple measures to test the optimality of LLA classifications. The 31 LLAs adequately reflect the 'reality' of actual functional labour market relationships. The article also investigates the matching between reality and the LLA classification as used in spatial policy. There is a large gap between reality and policy. This urges bringing the policy classification more in line with existing LLAs. Alternatively, if one considers the present policy classification as an instrument for future spatial structure, much additional effort will be required. The findings of the article can be easily applied to other European countries.     

Mapping Sxwóxwiymelh: A Pre-contact Settlement in the Upper Fraser Valley,Southwestern British Columbia

Abstract

Maps and mapping are fundamental to archaeology. Archaeologists sometimes fail to recognize that the maps we use and create are fraught, like material culture, with interpretive complexities. These complexities arise from the fact that maps are created with social meaning dependent on the context in which the map was created and used. Here, we relate our experience with maps and mapmaking at the pithouse settlement of Sxwóxwiymelh, in southwestern British Columbia. We review the mapping history of the site, highlighting the contexts in which the maps were constructed and how they influenced subsequent interpretations of the site. We describe our deconstruction of these earlier maps and how we combined them to create a more accurate and detailed map that presented a rendition of the site as it was prior to significant modern development. This process of map deconstruction and construction allowed us to see several previously unknown details about the ancient settlement (e.g., house form, relative house size, and feature spacing) of Sxwóxwiymelh. In general, this process provides conceptual and practical lessons for incorporating previously collected map data into archaeological research.