Can Maps Be Human? Cartographic Humanities and the journey toward intimate and embodied mappings

Over the past 15 years, with growing interest in cartography across various humanistic disciplines, the new area of ‘map studies’ has emerged as a cross disciplinary research field. This rise in mapping has driven scholars and activists to explore mapping ontologies, practices, and performances as critical tools in (counter)political, deep and emotional, archival, forensic, or purely informational modes.

What can a cartographic humanities approach bring to this expanding cartosphere? Like the geohumanities, which foster interdisciplinary dialogue between geography, the arts, and the humanities, ‘cartohumanities’ examine the role of map-centred theories and methodologies within the arts and humanities. This emerging field intersects with established traditions, such as the history of cartography, critical cartography, and more broad ‘cultural cartography’ (Cosgrove, 2008).

In this presentation, I explore the ethos behind the term ‘cartographic humanities’ through insights drawn from my co-edited volume, The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities (Rossetto and Lo Presti, 2024). I then reflect on the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical foundations that inform my interest in cartographic intimacies and body mappings, as I speculate on how, when and why maps can be human - balancing deconstructive and reparative approaches to mapping.

Speaker: Laura Lo Presti, Universita di Padova