Feminist Mapping Editorial 2012

Abstract

Humans make and use maps all the time to locate themselves and others in space and in time. We use maps to find our way and to show others how to get here and there. Artists, including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, have remapped hegemonic perceptions of history of physical and conceptual geographies through their art. Mapping is a “spatialized analytic frame that can account for varying scales of representation, ideology, economics, and politics, while maintaining a commitment to difference and asymmetical power” (Alexandra & Mohanty, 2010, p. 25). As Katherine Harmon (2009) writes in her book, The Map as Art:

Is there any motif so malleable, so ripe for appropriation, as maps? They can act as shorthand for ready metaphors: seeking location and experiencing dislocation, bringing order to chaos, exploring ratios of scale, charting new terrains. Maps act as backdrops for statements about politically imposed boundaries, territoriality, and other notions of power and projection. (p. 10)