ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses mapping as a form of ontopolitics, in which mapping agency shifts from being subject-centred to becoming a product of a more-than-human (posthuman) assemblage. Mapping relies on the capacities or affordances of other agencies or actors, thereby bringing new agencies into being. The first section introduces mapping beyond the human in terms of the governance of effects rather than causation, focusing on the work of Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour in establishing the problematic of contingent interaction, rather than causal depth, as key to emergent effects, which can be unexpected and catastrophic. The second section considers in more depth how mapping as a technique of posthuman governance puts greater emphasis on relations of interaction rather than on ontologies of being, and links the methodological approach of posthuman governance closely to actor network assumptions that disavow structures of causation. The final section analyses how correlation works to reveal new agencies and processes of emergence and how new technologies have been deployed in this area, providing some examples of how the shift from causal relations to mapping effects has begun to alter governmental approaches.
