Mapping the Nature-Culture Continuum through the Non-Aristotelian Approach of Cartography

International audienceFor almost half a century, the sacralization of geographical space has been privileged by public policies to protect the environment. In the field of environmental humanities, this approach based on the strict conservation of Nature is now criticized. More inclusive measures such as OECMs are starting to emerge. In addition to limiting or even blocking access to the resource in some regions of the world, the enclosure of perfectly delimited portions of the geographical space only reinforces the ontological rupture between Nature and Culture, and by extension the disconnection between human beings and their living environment. As a privileged medium of communication between scientists, politicians and the local population, the map is primarily concerned, because it conveys a vision of reality based on separation and therefore exclusion. In this context, this presentation will outline the theoretical foundations of a new approach of cartography – called non-Aristotelian – which breaks with the Aristotelian law of excluded middle and attempts to re-establish a continuum between geographical space held as “objective” and human spatial experience considered as subjective. The first part of this presentation will expose an alternative logic to that of Aristotle, based on the Nāgārjunian tetralemma (Catuskoti). Once this perspective on the included middle revealed, we will describe the key concepts of non-Aristotelian cartography (i.e. microgeographic spaces, topogenesis, and geographic relata), and finally focus on representational considerations, since the main challenge is to link two antagonistic visions of geographical reality in the same space of representation