Mapping Together: On collaborative implicit cartographies, their discourses, and space construction

Abstract

It is 2011: maps are everywhere. Web mapping and mobile mapping have become killer applications on iPhone and Web 2.0. Many, and with them the most popular, cartographic tools and widgets have not been created by cartographers. This also means a vast absence of normative standards set out by the cartographic research community over the last century. This paper examines whether the typical characteristics of these “implicit” cartographies, and especially collaborative mapping, have distinct influence on the type, style and outcome of mapping discourses, bringing together a critical cartography and a contemporary action-centered social geography. Finally, an outlook on the planned empirical verification is given.