ABSTRACT
Deep-mapping is a process. It is a process that does not strive to either please or attain authority, it makes no claim on definitive opinion. Rather, deep maps are the structure within which a conversation, or conversations, can flourish between multiple perspectives. Fluid, fragile, flexible, they morph and absorb new inputs, provoking new insights as a by-product rather than as an intentional aim. In this way, the deep map can become a conduit for rethinking geomythological research and representation.
Traditionally, geomythology has been the study of landscape stories through the purview of geoscience with little regard for myth’s own voice. Bounded in the epistemic bias of orthodox perspectives, storytelling has been dismissed as an inferior feature in the landscape; a source to be critiqued or stood behind as a bridge for public engagement but not as a partner to be afforded equal value.
It is, however, possible to challenge that stance, to suggest that an alternative is possible. For ‘the world as it is’ does not stand still, it does not pose for a portrait; it is forever in flux. To map a landscape is more than geography, it is to facilitate a palimpsest of cultural narrative which struggles to be contained within the rigid parameters of a conventionally academic bracket. This chapter introduces such an approach. It seeks to give voice to one stretch of coastline across time, space and disciplines with the aim of not compromising integrity and to re-establish the very foundation upon which normative perspectives reside.
