Narrative Cartography: From Mapping Stories to the Narrative of Maps and Mapping

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the multiple ways of envisioning the relationships between maps and narratives. This is approached from a map making perspective. Throughout the process of editing this special issue, we have identified two main types of relationships. Firstly, maps have been used to represent the spatio-temporal structures of stories and their relationships with places. Oral, written and audio-visual stories have been mapped extensively. They raise some common cartographic challenges, such as improving the spatial expression of time, emotions, ambiguity, connotation, as well as the mixing of personal and global scales, real and fictional places, dream and reality, joy and pain. Secondly, the potential of maps as narratives and the importance of connecting the map with the complete mapping process through narratives is addressed. Although the potential of maps to tell stories has already been widely acknowledged, we emphasize the increasing recognition of the importance of developing narratives that critically describe the cartographic process and context in which maps unfold -the core idea of post-representational cartography. Telling the story about how maps are created and how they come to life in a broad social context and in the hands of their users has become a new challenge for mapmakers.

What Is Where? The Role of Map Representations and Mapping Practices in Advancing Scholarship

“…It was a theme important in understanding a society's culture or role within a larger cultural or multicultural complex (for recent reviews see Caquard and Cartwright, 2014;Cooper et al, 2015;Rossetto, 2014). Place itself is also an important to understanding historical and contemporary religion, language diffusion, gender and identity issues, popular culture and the human imagination.…”

A Map on the World of Professional Identity. Visual Narration for Education and Care Workers

“…The third study area analyses the narrative function of cartography, both in the literary sphere ("internal map" represented within stories), and in the personal sphere, to reflect on problematic conditions and personal identity, or on group and collective situations [31]. With reference to the personal/group aspect, cartographic construction, while representing a static vision, is conceived "always in the process of beginning" (p. 104) because the main element of its use is not only its creation but also the observation of the representation and its discussion, in an ongoing game of agreement and disagreement in relation to that presented graphically.…”

“…• possibility for inter-professional confrontation (on points of view and interpretative models), collective learning [28], reflection [29,30] on professional identity, critical analysis in professional action, adopting research practices (in terms of paths, trajectories, targets and observations); • creation of non-linear, personalised paths which represent the vision that the operator has of himself, and of his complex and systematic transformation; • recent reflections suggest integration of the art of mapping with visual opportunities which, as well as expanding the complexity of the vision, can provide an opportunity to work not only on a "classic" level (map on paper), but also in IT format, thanks to the use of elaboration and postproduction technologies on the material mapped using online programs [31];…”

Narrative of the annotated Space–Time Cube – revisiting a historical event

“…New technological opportunities have also raised the interest of the scientist in the phenomena of mapping stories or narrative mapping (Caquard, 2013;Caquard & Cartwright, 2014;Caquard & Fiset, 2014). However, in most examples, time and space are not that well linked.…”