Mapping modes, methods and moments: a manifesto for map studies

By way of conclusion to Rethinking Maps we want to set out a manifesto for map studies for the coming decade. Its goal is to generate ideas and enthusiasm for scholarship that advances our understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of maps, and also enhances the practices of mapping. This is not a call for ever more introspective intellectual navel gazing about maps. Instead it traces routes and methods that might help people to do mapping differently and more productively, in ways that might be more efficient, democratic, sustainable, ethical, or even more fun. This manifesto is, of course, preliminary and partial, coming as it does from a social scientific tradition and the authors’ experiences as Anglophone human geographers. It also focuses on understanding everyday mapping practices and the various sociotechnological infrastructures that are a necessary, but often unquestioned, support for contemporary mapping. The aim is to suggest and provoke. Our manifesto for map studies is structured into three “levels”, firstly looking at modes (“what to study”), secondly, methods (“how to study”), and finally moments (“when and where to study”)