Object-Oriented Cartography: Maps as Things

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. Introduction: layers of map thinking 1 (Re)Turning to cartographic things 2 From object-oriented ontology (OOO) to map studies, and vice versa 3 Stretching theories: cartographic objects, map acts 4 To rest on cartographic surfaces 5 Learning from cartifacts, drifting through mapscapes 6 The productive failures of literary cartographic objects: the father, the son, The Road, and the broken map 7 The gentle politics of non-human narration: a Europe map’s autobiography 8 Pictured maps, object renderings, and close readings 9 Animated cartography, or entering in dialogue with maps 10 Maps vis-à-vis maps: (in-car) navigation, coexistence, and the digital others 11 Re-visitations at cartographic sites: the becomings and ‘unbecomings’ of maps Conclusion