Reflexive Cartography

Reflexive Cartography addresses the adaptation of cartography, including its digital forms (GIS, WebGIS, PPGIS), to the changing needs of society, and outlines the experimental context aimed at mapping a topological space. Using rigorous scientific analysis based on statement consistency, relevance of the proposals, and model accessibility, it charts the transition from topographical maps created by state agencies to open mapping produced by citizens.

Adopting semiotic theory to uncover the complex communicative mechanisms of maps and to investigate their ability to produce their own messages and new perspectives, Reflexive Cartography outlines a shift in our way of conceptualizing maps: from a plastic metaphor of reality, as they are generally considered, to solid tools that play the role of agents, assisting citizens as they think and plan their own living place and make sense of the current world.

• Applies a range of technologies to theoretical perspectives on mapping to innovatively map the world's geographic diversity
• Features a multi-disciplinary perspective that weaves together geography, the geosciences, and the social sciences through territorial representation
• Authored and edited by two of the world's foremost cartographic experts who combine more than 60 years of experience in research and in the classroom
• Presents more than 60 figures to underscore key concepts

Auteur

Emanuela Casti is full professor of Geography at the University of Bergamo where she directs the CST-Centro Studi sul Territorio, is responsible of the DiathesisLab (www.unibg.it/diathesis) and is President of the MA in Geourbanistica. Considered and innovator in cartographic theories studies, she has formalize a semiotic theory that investigates the relationship between cartography and geography, extending it to the new systems of cybercartography in the book of theory Reflexive Cartography published in the Modern Cartography Series by Elsevier. Her researches concern the historical context (the prehistoric cartography in Valcamonica, the renaissance and modern cartography of Venice, the Italian and French colonial cartography in Africa) as well as the contemporary one: mapping of movement, of conservation (http://multimap.unibg.it/; https://orobiemap.unibg.it/), for the governance (www.bgopenmapping.it; www.bgpublicspace.it, https://cittaaltaplurale.unibg.it/) and the regeneration of urban peripheries (www.rifoit.org). She has published more that a hundred of essays, among which the books: Reality as representation. The semiotics of cartography and the generation of meaning (Bergamo University Press, 2000); Reflexive Cartography. A New Perspective on Mapping (Elsevier, 2015).

Contenu

PART ONE 1. Cartographic interpretation between continuity and renewal: on the trail of chora 2. The triumph of topos in colonial cartography: topographic metrics 3. Landscape as a cartographic icon

PART TWO 4. Technology in action: participatory cartographic systems 5. Chorographic horizon: landscape cartography 6. Coming full circle: towards a Chorography