Towards a Poststructuralist Perspective on the Making and the Power of Maps. A Response to Ball and Petsimeris

Abstract

This paper takes the recent article "Mapping Urban Social Divisions" by BALL and PETSIMERIS, published in FQS, as a starting point for discussing the role of maps for visualizing knowledge and as an object of research in the social sciences. The paper draws on the theoretical approach of "critical cartography" which changed the conception of maps and the practice of mapmaking since the early 1990s. Critical cartography is deeply informed by a poststructuralist critique of knowledge and truth. Maps, no longer conceptualized as graphical images of reality where the only concern is the quality of the data, are powerful actors in the social construction of reality. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1003281