ABSTRACT

Object-Oriented Cartography provides an innovative perspective on the changing nature of maps and cartographic study. Through a renewed theoretical reading of contemporary cartography, this book acknowledges the shifted interest from cartographic representation to mapping practice and proposes an alternative consideration of the ‘thingness’ of maps.

Rather than asking how maps map onto reality, it explores the possibilities of a speculative-realist map theory by bringing cartographic objects to the foreground. Through a pragmatic perspective, this book focuses on both digital and nondigital maps and establishes an unprecedented dialogue between the field of map studies and object-oriented ontology. This dialogue is carried out through a series of reflections and case studies involving aesthetics and technology, ethnography and image theory, and narrative and photography.

Proposing methods to further develop this kind of cartographic research, this book will be invaluable reading for researchers and graduate students in the fields of Cartography and Geohumanities.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

Layers of map thinking

chapter 1|10 pages

(Re)Turning to cartographic things

chapter 3|9 pages

Stretching theories

Cartographic objects, map acts

chapter 4|11 pages

To rest on cartographic surfaces

chapter 6|9 pages

The productive failures of literary cartographic objects

The father, the son, The Road, and the broken map

chapter 7|14 pages

The gentle politics of non-human narration

A Europe map’s autobiography

chapter 10|12 pages

Maps vis-à-vis maps

(In-car) navigation, coexistence, and the digital others

chapter 11|14 pages

Re-visitations at cartographic sites

The becomings and ‘unbecomings’ of maps

chapter |8 pages

Conclusions