Call for Papers

IGC 2012 August 26-30, Cologne : New Cartographies of Risks and Conflicts.

Session organizers: Georg Glasze and Boris Michel (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

The emergence of web 2.0 considerably changes the production and use of maps. The “neo-cartographies” of the “geoweb” challenge not just the role of cartographers and geographers as the authorized producers of maps and cartographic knowledge, but produce a wide range of new mapping practices. This becomes most apparent in the context of web based crisis and risk cartographies where collaborative and highly dynamic mapping projects open up new ways of recording and managing crises and assessing risk. Recent examples include crisis mapping of the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, mapping conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as the deployment of web mapping in risk assessment and environmental planning.

While these new practices are frequently celebrated as a new democratic and instant way of responding to social, political and ecological crises in very different contexts, there are a number of questions that call for a critical examination. This session invites papers related to the (online) mapping of conflicts and crises. We are looking for practical examples and reflective research, including critical cartography, that addresses some of the following questions:

- How are conflicts played out within crisis mappings. What new power relations are produced, what voices silenced?

- How are existing power relations and hegemonies contested, sustained or enhanced by these new cartographic practices?

- What is the role of technology in these processes and how can we conceptualize it?

- How do practices of defining and constructing risks, crises and conflicts change?

- How is knowledge produced by these new discourses and practices and how does it differ from the previous power-knowledge of cartographic reason?

- Despite the overwhelming positive response to most of these projects by media and academia there is very little work done on their actual impact. Does web mapping in these contexts make a difference?

In addition to registering your abstract for the conference on the IGC (www.igc2012.org) website, please submit a copy to Boris Michel ([log in to unmask]) not later than December 15th 2011.

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Dr. Boris Michel

Institut für Geographie

Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Kochstr. 4/4

91054 Erlangen

Tel: 09131/85 23302

Fax:09131/ 85 22013

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