Maps Narratives and Trails: Performativity,Hodology and Distributed Knowledges in Complex Adaptive Systems – an Approach to Emergent Mapping

If maps are conceived as representations of reality or as spatially referenced data assemblages, a dilemma is raised by the nature of Indigenous knowledge traditions and multiple ontologies. How can differing knowledge traditions, differing ways of mapping be enabled to work together without subsumption into one common or universal ontology? The paper explores one way of handling this dilemma by reconceiving mapping and knowing performatively and hodologically. It is argued that one way in which differing knowledge traditions can interact and be mutually interrogated is by creating a database structured as distributed knowledge and emulating a complex adaptive system. Through focusing on the encounters, tensions and cooperations between traditions and utilising the concept of cognitive trails‐ the creation of knowledge by movement through the natural and intellectual environment – the socially distributed performative dimensions of differing modes of spatially organised knowledges can then be held in a dialogical tension that enables emergent mapping.     

Environmental Damage: Pricing and Public Perception

An alternative technique is proposed for estimating the annual value of environmental damage in Australia. Such estimates are rarely made and an alternative approach is proposed to ‘hypothetical’, ‘willingness to pay’ studies. Such studies tend towards overestimation from respondents who are aware of the ‘hypothetical’ nature of the study and are hence ‘willing to pay’ more than they can realistically afford. In order to minimise this, the study has confined responses to the Federal budget, an amount that actually could be spent. Results also reveal the extent of awareness of environmental problems in Australia. Politically these results indicate the high priority areas for environmental action.     

Checkpoint dogs: Photovoicing canine companionship in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is often depicted as either a wildlife refuge or an apocalyptic wasteland, which is representative of the ongoing scientific controversy regarding the effects of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe on nature in the Zone. In this article, the filthy/flourishing binary is disrupted by attending to the everyday human-dog relations that have emerged in the Zone between dogs - some of which are likely descendants of pets originally abandoned during the evacuation in 1986 - and checkpoint guards. Participatory photography is deployed as method. Themes of companionship, care and commensality emerge alongside a discussion of the nature of Chernobyl dogs, which is invoked in discourses surrounding their apparent wildness, territoriality and adaptation to radiation.