Walking And Mapping

An exploration of walking and mapping as both form and content in art projects using old and new technologies, shoe leather and GPS. From Guy Debord in the early 1950s to Richard Long, Janet Cardiff, and Esther Polak more recently, contemporary artists have returned again and again to the walking motif. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for mobile mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O'Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary artists. She offers close readings of these projects—many of which she was able to experience firsthand—and situates them in relation to landmark works from the past half-century. Together, they form a new entity, a dynamic whole greater than the sum of its parts. By alternating close study of selected projects with a broader view of their place in a bigger picture, Walking and Mapping itself maps a complex phenomenon.

As a research methodology, walking has a diverse and extensive history in the social sciences and humanities, underscoring its value for conducting research that is situated, relational, and material. Building on the importance of place, sensory inquiry, embodiment, and rhythm within walking research, this book offers four new concepts for walking methodologies that are accountable to an ethics and politics of the more-than-human: Land and geos, affect, transmaterial and movement. The book carefully considers the more-than-human dimensions of walking methodologies by engaging with feminist new materialisms, posthumanisms, affect theory, trans and queer theory, Indigenous theories, and critical race and disability scholarship. These more-than-human theories rub frictionally against the history of walking scholarship and offer crucial insights into the potential of walking as a qualitative research methodology in a more-than-human world. Theoretically innovative, the book is grounded in examples of walking research by WalkingLab, an international research network on walking (www.walkinglab.org). The book is rich in scope, engaging with a wide range of walking methods and forms including: long walks on hiking trails, geological walks, sensory walks, sonic art walks, processions, orienteering races, protest and activist walks, walking tours, dérives, peripatetic mapping, school-based walking projects, and propositional walks. The chapters draw on WalkingLab’s research-creation events to examine walking in relation to settler colonialism, affective labour, transspecies, participation, racial geographies and counter-cartographies, youth literacy, environmental education, and collaborative writing. The book outlines how more-than-human theories can influence and shape walking methodologies and provokes a critical mode of walking-with that engenders solidarity, accountability, and response-ability. This volume will appeal to graduate students, artists, and academics and researchers who are interested in Education, Cultural Studies, Queer Studies, Affect Studies, Geography, Anthropology, and (Post)Qualitative Research Methods.

A Genealogist's Guide to Using Maps and Geography The truth about genealogy is that, although you might believe it has something to do with history, it actually has something more to do with geography. Though of course the names and dates on your family tree are the bread and butter of genealogy, the location of the records is what reveals them. And how better to learn about location than with maps! Maps are a crucial tool in learning about your family history. They can show you how to find a courthouse, where a grave is located, or where an ancestral homestead might be. But maps are much more than that - they can reveal intimate details about the lives of your ancestors. Walk the roads that your forefathers walked with maps! Maps will reveal the clues that you need to locate ancestors that suddenly "disappear." This book will teach you how to use maps to: Find the roads, rivers, and trains that your great-grandfathers used to travel across the country and see where they might have relocated. Discover the ever-shifting boundaries of territories, counties, and towns and learn the alternate places where records might be found. Locate places that no longer exist and uncover the long-lost homes, schools, farms, and more where your ancestors spent their time. Become familiar with all the different kinds of maps, from military to topographic, and how they can assist you in your research. Walking with Your Ancestors is the perfect guide to the under-utilized revelations that are just waiting for you in maps, atlases, and gazetteers. Find out about these fascinating snapshots of history and what they can tell you about the lives of your ancestors today!

Without you, I have taken to drawing maps on the backs of photographs. On the coast in a raincoat your smile has been dented by a lake, the fluting arms of rivers have made your shoulders look like the bark of birches. from "Cartographer" In Cartography and Walking, Adam Dickinson charts his own listening -- an acute listening of eye and ear, a listening with both body and mind. "Cartography" is more than a metaphor for him, it's a way of being. It is how we dwell in the world, and how intimacy enriches such dwelling. Yet "cartography" is the presiding metaphor, the structure of this book; in giving it such a place, Dickinson reminds the reader of that very human impulse to plot, to imagine. Each poem is itself a kind of mapping, through language and sound, through minute observation, until land, love, and everyday life are given new embodiment, are newly discovered, and a reader finds new countries in strangely familiar settings. "There is a generous, ingenious listening in Adam Dickinson's Cartography and Walking -- bats, houses, bears, killdeer, honey kept under the sink, atlases open on a floor. The things seem to become themselves in this hearing. The world the ear holds in these poems is a good place to stand." -- Tim Lilburn "The supple voice in Adam Dickinson's poetry distills the complexities of emotion and intellect into a clarity of phrasing and metaphor. One hopes for readers who listen half as carefully to the subtleties of his poetry as he listens to the world he evokes. For Adam Dickinson, cartography provides the imaginative contour lines for mapping the features of a colloquy between human experience and the natural world, a world at once familiar and strange, that we call home." -- Ross Leckie

The relationship of texts and maps, and the mappability of literature, examined from Homer to Houellebecq. Literary authors have frequently called on elements of cartography to ground fictional space, to visualize sites, and to help readers get their bearings in the imaginative world of the text. Today, the convergence of digital mapping and globalization has spurred a cartographic turn in literature. This book gathers leading scholars to consider the relationship of literature and cartography. Generously illustrated with full-color maps and visualizations, it offers the first systematic overview of an emerging approach to the study of literature. The literary map is not merely an illustrative guide but represents a set of relations and tensions that raise questions about representation, fiction, and space. Is literature even mappable? In exploring the cartographic components of literature, the contributors have not only brought literary theory to bear on the map but have also enriched the vocabulary and perspectives of literary studies with cartographic terms. After establishing the theoretical and methodological terrain, they trace important developments in the history of literary cartography, considering topics that include Homer and Joyce, Goethe and the representation of nature, and African cartographies. Finally, they consider cartographic genres that reveal the broader connections between texts and maps, discussing literary map genres in American literature and the coexistence of image and text in early maps. When cartographic aspirations outstripped factual knowledge, mapmakers turned to textual fictions. Contributors Jean-Marc Besse, Bruno Bosteels, Patrick M. Bray, Martin Brückner, Tom Conley, Jörg Dünne, Anders Engberg-Pedersen, John K. Noyes, Ricardo Padrón, Barbara Piatti, Simone Pinet, Clara Rowland, Oliver Simons, Robert Stockhammer, Dominic Thomas, Burkhardt Wolf

An interdisciplinary collection exploring the practices and cultures of mapping in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It features contributions from scholars in critical cartography, social anthropology, film and cultural studies, literary studies, art and visual culture, marketing, museum studies, architecture, and popular music studies.

a collection of intimate reflections by artist Ernesto Pujol, which bring together his experiences as a former monk, performance artist, social choreographer and educator.

Miri's been on the move and now she's finding her feet, her freedom, her community and her home, treading lightly all the way. A story about spreading your wings and putting down roots in an ancient land. From the much-loved creator of Rivertime (WINNER: Readings Prize and Wilderness Society Award) and Rockhopping (WINNER: CBCA Awards). 'Another lovely adventure from Trace Balla. Rich in country and family, deep in care for the future.' BRUCE PASCOE 'A beautiful book about being connected to the world at ground level. I feel like I've made a new friend through Trace's exquisitely accessible drawings and gentle prose.' ALISON LESTER 'Reminiscent of Alison Lester and Roland Harvey, Landing with Wings is a story about moving slowly, looking carefully and remaining curious, and it is a book that leads by example. In her loving portrait of community life in Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Balla achieves something like a contemporary visual bush poetry. It is spellbinding.' Books+Publishing

Step back into old Japan with this fascinating travelogue of the famous Kiso Road, an ancient route used by samurai and warlords The Kisoji, which runs through the Kiso Valley in the Japanese Alps, has been in use since at least 701 C.E. In the seventeenth century, it was the route that the daimyo (warlords) used for their biennial trips—along with their samurai and porters—to the new capital of Edo (now Tokyo). The natural beauty of the route is renowned—and famously inspired the landscapes of Hiroshige, as well as the work of many other artists and writers. William Scott Wilson, esteemed translator of samurai philosophy, has walked the road several times and is a delightful and expert guide to this popular tourist destination; he shares its rich history and lore, literary and artistic significance, cuisine and architecture, as well as his own experiences.

A book about developments in walking and walk-performance for enthusiasts, practitioners, students and academics.