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Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Political Geography
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

Intervention: Mapping is critical!

Guntram H. Herb a, *, Jouni Häkli b, Mark W. Corson c, Nicole Mellow d, Sebastian Cobarrubias e,1,
Maribel Casas-Cortes e,1
a
Department of Geography, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA
b
Department of Regional Studies, University of Tampere, Finland
c
Department of Geology/Geography, Northwest Missouri State University, USA
d
Political Science Department, Williams College, USA
e
Counter-Cartographies Collective, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA

a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This intervention targets the much heralded demise of the map in geography and the recently proposed
Maps ‘‘rethinking’’ of maps. It comprises contributions from two political geographers, a military geographer,
Mapping a political scientist, and two activist cartographers and argues that there is not so much a need to
Cartography
‘‘rethink’’ maps, but to ‘‘re-engage’’ with the material practices of mapping, and above all to ‘‘re-make’’
Politics
maps.
Geography
! 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction post-structuralist theorizations, and views from sidelined subfields

Guntram H. Herb
Is the demise of the quintessentially geographic tool and badge
upon us? Is it time to write epitaphs for maps (Martin, 2000) or can
maps be ‘‘reclaimed’’ (Dodge & Perkins, 2008) through ‘‘rethinking
maps’’ (Kitchin & Dodge, 2007)? Yet again, a sophisticated post-
structuralist theoretical salvo has been fired off to help solve
a seemingly pressing issue in geography. To be fair, Dodge and
Perkins’ (2008) main concern is the decline of maps in the UK, not in
the US or elsewhere, but the theoretical thrust by Kitchin and Dodge
(2007) is aimed squarely at geography at large and has already
stimulated a call for more maps in political geography. But what
paths should political geographers take ‘‘to go back to the maps’’
(O’Loughlin, Raento, & Sidaway, 2009: 1)? Maps are used by
different types of political geographers, in a wide variety of contexts,
and come in a multitude of forms. So, the call to engage with maps
and the proposed rethinking cannot be universally relevant or
applicable, not even in a subdiscipline that has always recognized
the power of maps, even to the point of turning them into explicit
tools of persuasion (Herb, 1989). This intervention is an attempt to
stimulate further reflection on maps by exploring a range of
different positions on their role in political geography. It includes
a more nuanced assessment of the decline, a critique of the new
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 802 443 5714.
E-mail address: herb@middlebury.edu (G.H. Herb).
1
www.countercartographies.org
and related fields outside geography. It is the hope of the contrib-
utors that the ideas we present here will stimulate geographers to
think about new ways to re-engage with maps and mapmaking.
The intervention comprises five contributions. In the first, I briefly
examine the widely professed decline of maps. My main argument is
that the decline in the number of maps in political geography is far
less significant than the lack of certain types of maps. There seems to
be a tendency among critical theory informed geographers to simply
deconstruct maps, rather than to construct them.
My argument is followed up by Jouni Häkli’s plea to stop rela-
tivizing maps to the point where they become mere individual
performances ‘‘to solve relational problems’’ (cf. Kitchin & Dodge,
2007). He stresses that practices of mapping by states and other
power holders are factual and cannot be pushed aside in our
concern for maps as forms of representations. He explains that our
focus should not be on the image (representation) of the map, but
on the material practices that are behind their construction and use.
The third and fourth contributions discuss the role of maps in
the disciplinary peripheries of political geography: the internal
periphery occupied by the often shunned power tradition and the
external periphery of the closely related discipline of political
science. Mark Corson explains that maps and mapping in the power
tradition of political geography, which encompasses military
geography along with geostrategy and geopolitics, not only remains
vital, but also has become even more prominent with the advent of
new technologies. Political geography would be well served to re-
embrace its long lost cousin, military geography. Nicole Mellow
investigates maps in political science. She shows that political
scientists have also abandoned their earlier engagement with

0962-6298/$ – see front matter ! 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.09.005
 Author's personal copy

G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342 333

spatializations of power and argues that the study of American
politics today ignores mapsdand geography more generallyddespite
a national fascination with and wide popularization of electoral
maps.
The final contribution by Sebastian Cobarrubias and Maribel
Casas-Cortes suggests that geographers become politically engaged
in their use of maps. As members of the Counter-Cartographies
Collective (3Cs), they argue for the use of maps in radically new
ways to counter hegemonic structures and thus aid progressive
politics. Their account of global networks of social movements
engaging in activist cartographies speaks to the actual production
and use of political maps. Their contributiondcoming this time
from the disciplinary periphery of ‘geographies of resistance’dbr-
ings us full circle: there is not so much a need to ‘‘rethink’’ maps,
but for political geography to ‘‘re-make’’ maps.
What decline?
Guntram H. Herb
Ever since Wheeler (1998: 2, 4) diagnosed geography with
‘‘mapphobia,’’ and explained the ‘‘waning reliance on maps’’ to
communicate ideas on ‘‘the rise of social theorists and post-
modernists’’ and ‘‘an erosion of training in cartography,’’ there is
great conviction among geographers that maps no longer matter as
much in our discipline. In addition to Martin (2000), Kitchin and
Dodge (2007), and Dodge and Perkins (2008), there are Kain and
Delano-Smith (2003) and Cosgrove (2008). Most of these works
include data analyses that measure the decline in the number of
maps in leading journals over the last decades to support their
assertions. However, in the case of the journal Political Geography,
the decline in maps is not particularly noticeable (see Fig. 1).
The line of moving averages shows that there is a tendency to
have fewer maps over the course of the last two decades, but this
decline only came after a sizeable increase in articles with maps in
the late 1980s. It has now leveled off. Moreover, the recent figures
are still higher than those of the early years of the journal when
barely one third of articles had maps. Variations in the number of
articles with maps in individual years are also significant, ranging
from a low of 23% in 1983 to a high of 63% in 1989.
The plain numbers alone do not tell muchdnot all maps are
equally significant. Should geographers worry about a decline in
simple locational maps or more about maps used for analysis and
communication (Kain & Delano-Smith, 2003: 412)? In case of the
latter, what about maps that are made by the author of an article
versus those that are taken from other sources? Living in an often
cited visual age, maps are available more easily than ever and the
argument quickly shifts to a concern about a decline in the skills of
making maps (Kain & Delano-Smith, 2003: 414; Wheeler, 1998: 4)
and the quality of the maps that are produced (Dodge & Perkins,
2008). The question then becomes which geographers use maps
and for what purpose? Or, to use Brian Harley’s brilliant approach
to the history of cartography (Harley, 1989), let me turn the ques-
tion around and look at what is not mapped. Where are the silences
and less prominent themes?
Which ideas and concepts are not expressed or are neglected in
maps in Political Geography? The vast majority of maps in research
articles between 1982 and 2008 depict politics within the rigid
confines of existing political territorial divisions. Reference maps
show boundary lines and thematic maps the size of electoral votes,
shares of ethnicity, or economic and social indicators in different
districts. The territorial State and its subdivisions still seem to reign
supreme. A second major set of maps portrays people–environment
interactions (see Rustad, Rod, Larsen, & Gleditsch, 2008, for
a particularly impressive example). But where are politics with
a small p in maps? Where are visualizations of the politics of the
body, of gender, class, and sexuality? Of the 328 maps in the last
decade (1999–2008), only one portrays gender-based discrimina-
tion (Lafer, 2003: 106). Equally neglected are mental maps and
visualizations of symbolic landscapes. The mental map in Oslender
(2004: 971), and the map of manifestations of territoriality along the
Sino-Burmese boundary in Dean (2005: 819) are notable exceptions.
The rejection of dynamic visualizations is particularly striking. If
politics are complex, multi-scalar, and networked as critical works
in political geography have shown so convincingly, why are there
only isolated attempts to portray that (e.g., Baybeck & Huckfeldt,
2002: 200)? Arrows appear to have been stigmatized as devious.
They generally only appear in maps that are deconstructed and
denigrated as vile expressions of unabashed power politics (e.g.
Corva, 2008: 185; Ingram, 2001: 1039, 1044).

100

90

80
% articles with at least one map

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
03
04
05
06
07
08
99
00
01
02
94
95
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87
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93
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8
8
8
8

20
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19
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19
19
19

year of publication

Fig. 1. Maps in the journal Political Geography. Bars represent figures for individual years; the line represents moving averages based on 3-year intervals. Regular research articles
only; no editorials, plenaries, commentaries or discussion forums (total number of articles = 698; articles with at least one map = 281).
 Author's personal copy

334 G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342

These silences cannot be explained away with a reference to
dominant themes of research articles. As I have argued elsewhere,
works in political geography can be usefully grouped into three
different traditions (Herb, 2008). The critical traditiondwhich
questions the State, calls for politics with a small p, and believes
that power emanates from a variety of groups and structuresdexerts
a commanding hold on contemporary political geography. By
contrast, the governance traditiondwhich accepts the State and
existing political territories as givendand the power tradi-
tiondwhich has a realist and dynamic orientationdare sidelined.
Yet, judged simply by the majority of the types of maps in Political
Geography it would appear that the governance tradition has
disproportionate influence and not the critical tradition.
Why are maps that are expressing the values of the governance
tradition so prevalent? The answer here is probably convenience:
choropleth mapping using existing administrative units is still
the most expedient way to represent data and such maps can
be easily produced even with online mapping tools such as
those offered by the US Census Bureau. The pronounced under-
representation of the critical tradition is less straight-forward. I
argue that above all preoccupation with theoretizations and
secondarily with tearing down, unraveling, and deconstructing
power and its geographic manifestations make maps only worthy
as an object of critique.
Mapmaking requires authors to specify points and areas, and to
give some indication of the course of a line. While this invariably
reduces the complexity of the human and physical world, it offers
the chance to see fundamental spatial relationships. Writing is
more flexible, allows ambiguity, and makes it possible to dance
around clear statements and definitions. So, while writing can
better convey complexity, it can also seduce authors not to take
a strong stance and take refuge in eloquence and high-flying
theoretical pronouncements. But I do not want to be misunder-
stood: I heartily embrace the recent sophisticated theoretical
advances that view maps as relational and performative; they
greatly advance our understanding of spatial representations. What
seems to be lacking is the practice of representation: the produc-
tion of tangible cartographic media that express different spatiali-
zations of the political.
Maps do not need to hamper concerns for conceptualization,
complexity, dynamism, and scale. The tendency of traditional maps
to employ and thus reify crisp boundaries does not mean that the
enterprise has to be abandoned altogether, rather, it should stim-
ulate geographers to explore new technologies (Goodchild, 1997)
and to reconsider the value of previously discredited types of maps.
As geopolitical maps show, cartographic designs, such as arrows,
shadings, insets, and graphs are able to convey a multitude of
expressions of power effectively. And such maps are not inherently
imperialist or tied to right-wing ideology! The sophisticated
geopolitical atlas of Le Monde Diplomatique (Gresh, Radvanyi,
Rekacewicz, Samary, & Vidal, 2009) provides ample illustration that
geopolitical maps can also be a form of resistance by exposing
hegemonic forces, such as the subjugation of Africa through
structural adjustment programs and unequal trade relations (see

Fig. 2. The noria of pillage. The use of color pencils in this and many of maps in the atlas conveys the subtle message that these graphic conceptualizations are sketches rather than
final judgments and thus open to critical use. In a similar vein of critical engagement, the chief cartographer, Philippe Rekacewicz offers his early sketches to the public in a blog for
discussion (e.g. http://blog.mondediplo.net/2006-11-27-L-Europe-et-ses-frontieres-paradoxales). Source: Gresh et al. (2009: 154). Reproduced with permission. Grayscale repro-
duction. Color original accessible online at: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/pdf/fracture.pdf.
 Author's personal copy
G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
Fig. 2). Such left and radical geopolitical maps are not new either:
the communist Alex Rado (Rado, 1930, reprint 1980) already made
maps in 1930 that critiqued the global reach of capitalism. Mapping
is critical and the critical must be mapped!
Mapping politics
Jouni Häkli
All maps lie, inevitably, as scholars such as Brian Harley (1989),
Mark Monmonier (1991), and Denis Wood (1992) have persistently
argued for more than two decades. This has increased awareness of
the highly problematic nature of maps as representations of the
social world, their thoroughly power-laden functions as vessels of
‘‘geo-power’’ (Ó Tuathail, 1996), yet taken-for-granted role as
seemingly neutral images of the globe and its regions (Pickles,
2004). Also the manner in which the power of maps extends
beyond the cognitive and representational into the very concrete
realities of situated social life, thus forming complex ‘‘power
geometries’’ (Massey, 1993), is now well established (e.g. Edney,
1997; Gregory, 1994; Livingstone, 1992). Maps are even believed to
‘‘roar’’ when they become the sites of and stakes in political
struggles (Sparke, 1998).
In this influential scholarship on the politics of cartographic
visualization attention has typically been placed on the social
construction of maps themselves (including their geo-history,
background ideologies, interests, iconographies, persuasive
imagery, spatial and social distortions, and political and cultural
biases). An equally broad literature exists on the social conse-
quences of maps and mappings (e.g. the building of Empire, justi-
fication of political domination, geopolitical practices, political
resistance, and processes of nation building). Cosgrove (1999)
echoes this twofold analytical frame even while arguing for a shift
of attention from maps to processes of mapping. According to him
critical cartographers should focus on ‘‘the authoring of a map, that
is, treating the map as a determined cultural outcome’’, as well as
on ‘‘the insertion of the map, once produced, into various circuits of
use, exchange and meaning’’ (Cosgrove, 1999: 9, italics added).
However both accounts tend to sever maps analytically from the
flux of those institutional and non-institutional practices and
processes that they nevertheless are an inseparable part of cogni-
tively, conceptually and materially. Hence, what in my view is
largely missing from the political–geographical analysis of cartog-
raphy is focus on a key question that could be termed the practical
politics of mapping and maps.
This is not to claim that the politics of cartographic practices are
a totally neglected area in geographical scholarship on maps.
Indeed, while analysis in political geography remains notably
scarce, there nevertheless exists a substantial and highly useful
literature on various political aspects that pertain to the production
and use of maps (analysis of the structural, ideological and/or
relational power of maps and mapping) (see e.g. Crampton, 2003;
Escolar, 1997; Perkins, 2004). Building on this research field, I
propose that instead of looking at what is depicted on maps, or the
manner in which this ties with various power geometries of the
social world, geographers should focus on the politics of those
social and material practices that employ maps and mapping. Such
an approach entails a thorough scrutiny of the actual social and
material relations and institutions that mapping practices help to
consolidate (Häkli, 2001).
At stake here is much more than a perceived need to rethink the
ontological status of maps, or the epistemological underpinnings of
their social uses, as in much critical cartography scholarship. In fact,
when taken to the extreme such concerns may end up with little
more than a philosophical exercise treating maps and mapping in
335
terms that, in the end, appear alienated from the socially con-
structed geographical world. To take a recent example, in a contri-
bution toward what they call ‘‘emergent cartography’’, Kitchin and
Dodge (2007: 335) argue that maps as spatial representations do not
enjoy the ‘‘ontological security’’ we tend to grant them. Instead they
are ‘‘brought into the world and made to do work through practices
such as recognizing, interpreting, translating, communicating, and
so on’’. Hence, ‘‘maps are practices – they are always mappings;
spatial practices enacted to solve relational problems (e.g. how best
to create spatial representation, how to understand a spatial
distribution, how to get between A and B, and so on)’’ (Kitchin &
Dodge, 2007: 335; emphasis in original).
While in principle I remain sympathetic toward their aims, not
least because they seek to address the broader social processes in
which maps acquire their ever shifting meanings, one cannot but
wonder the manner in which they end up trivializing the aspects
that stand behind the political significance and power of mapping.
Kitchin and Dodge (2007) spend nearly all their intellectual energy
in arguing that maps are not ‘‘immutable mobiles’’ (movable enti-
ties with fixed status as representations of the world), but rather
emerge through the situated practices of their usage. In so doing,
they effectively avert the question of why maps exist in the first
place. It is this question, inevitably material, social and political at
once, that, in my view, should be thoroughly scrutinized by political
geographers.
A question that haunts critical cartography is does it really make
good sense to analyze cartographic practices from the point of view
of the crisis of representation in an age that witnesses an unprec-
edented expansion of surveillance, mapping and cartographic
visualization in all walks of life. Apparently, the unstable ontolog-
ical status of maps has not made them any less valuable for military
practices, governmental techniques, marketing strategies,
gerrymandering, the establishment of land ownership, regional
planning, social engineering, the control of natural resources, the
tactics of political struggles, and so on. For all these and numerous
other power-laden social practices maps, mappings and
mapmaking provide relevant, useful and sometimes downright
indispensable architectures of knowing and intervention. I argue
that the continuing relevance of maps is based on the relative
immutability in the relationships that maps establish between
cartographic representation and the world of practice within which
they emerge. This quality, what Latour (1986) calls ‘‘optical
consistency’’, enables social and material interventions first to be
designed in abstracto and then implemented concretely (Häkli,
2001). The productive momentum that cartography offers to
political practices explains why a relatively simple technology such
as the map is still widely used.
No doubt, maps are worthy objects of study in themselves. But I
urge political geographers to take more interest in the politics of
those social and material practices that make use of maps and
mappings, instead of contending with their uncertain, unfinished
and always open-ended nature. This call entails a double challenge.
It is important to shift focus on the roles that maps, mappings and
mapmaking practices play in the constitution of societal power
relations. But to scrutinize the practical politics of mapping also
requires an articulate understanding of what, if anything, makes
those practices political.
These two challenges are profoundly interrelated. Routine
(re)production and utilization of cartographic technologies as part
of the politics of world making needs more attention, but maps
should not be considered as mere manifestations or reflections of
underlying power relations that lend them their political character.
Instead of simply deriving ‘the political’ from a realm external to
the practices of mapping (e.g. the state, the society, political ques-
tions, the goals of social movements or identity politics) it is
 Author's personal copy
336 G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
important to pinpoint the politics of these very practices. This
cannot be achieved with a conception of politics that assumes the
existence of the ‘political’ a priori. Despite much discussion on
politics as an all-embracing aspect of social life, and attempts to
distinguish what is politics from what is not, scholars have yet to
fully revivify the concept of the political (Barnett, 2004; Cope,
2004; Dikeç, 2005; Elden, 2000; Philo & Smith, 2003; Taylor, 1982).
Scholarship that meets the double challenge of analyzing the
practical politics of mapping will result in analyses that have
continuing relevance for making sense of the thoroughly ‘‘geo-
coded’’ world we inhabit.
Wither the map in political and military geography?
Mark W. Corson
Military geography is closely associated with political geography
as a traditional power geography along with geostrategy and
geopolitics. The purpose of this contribution is to generate
discussion by comparing and contrasting the relationships with
maps of political and military geographers in terms of their
respective cartographic capabilities, willingness, and resources.
Thus the first question is: have military geographers given up on
maps too?
The simple answer is no. Both historical and contemporary
military geographic works are filled with maps. Traditional military
geographies that focus on the effects of the physical environment
on battles, such as Battling the Elements (Winters, Galloway, Rey-
nolds, & Rhyne, 1998) are filled with high quality custom maps for
topography, weather, climate, the ebb and flows of battle, etc. Much
of the cartography is original work. More recent traditional military
geographic work captured in the compilation volumes The Scope of
Military Geography (Palka & Galgano, 2000) and Military Geography:
from Peace to War (Palka & Galgano, 2005) also use maps exten-
sively to convey the impact of geography on battle.
As contemporary military geography expanded from a traditional
focus on physical geography and warfare, the habit of relying on
maps to communicate spatial information and lessons continued.
The post Cold War Era focus on stability and peacekeeping opera-
tions was extensively covered by military geographers (Corson,
2000; Lahood, 2005; Lohman, 2000; Schroeder, 2000).
A new focus on geography applied to military issues in peace-
time routinely applies geospatial technologies. Examples include
geographical perspectives on military recruiting (Malinowski,
2000), an extensive literature on the US military and the domestic
environment (Dixon, 2000; Doe, Shaw, Bailey, Jones, & Macia, 2000;
Shaw, Doe, Palka, & Macia, 2000) as well as US military impacts on
overseas operating environments (Corson & Jasparro, 2006).
A later trend in military geography that surfaced post September
11 was a synthetic approach seeking to apply human, physical, and
geo-techniques approaches to specific operations to gain insights
applicable for future operations (Corson & Turregano, 2002; Palka,
2005; Palka, Galgano, & Corson, 2005). In a return to the ‘‘country
study’’ tradition of the Cold War Era the geography faculty at the
United States Military Academy produced a series of geographic
overviews with military value on Afghanistan (Palka, 2004), Iraq
(Malinowski, 2004), and North Korea (Palka & Galgano, 2004).
A review of this body of literature shows that maps, whether
historical or custom produced, are a normal and integral compo-
nent of military geographic work to this day. Many of these maps
are general reference maps that show where things happened.
Many of these maps are also thematic maps depicting the flows of
forces across time and terrain, weather maps showing the effect of
weather on historical battles, and maps derived from geographic
information systems analysis. But if as Guntram Herb suggests
above political geographers have gotten away from mapping, the
question remains why have many political geographers apparently
abandoned the cartographic art form while their military geogra-
pher cousins continue to embrace their maps?
There is some evidence that when political geographers or
avowedly non-military human geographers take up with military
geographic topics the trend is toward no or minimal maps in their
work. In Colin Flint’s volume of essays on The Geography of War and
Peace (2005) a variety of geographers cover 20 topics ranging from
the historical context of war to postwar recovery. Of the 20 chapters
four have maps. Rachel Woodward makes it evidently clear that she
is not a military geographer. In her book Military Geographies
(2004) she examines environmental, cultural, economic, and
political aspects of militarism from a geographic perspective. Her
book has a single map (albeit it has six images).
Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (2008) in their theory of situa-
tional leadership identify three components to any endeavor:
capability, willingness, and resources. Capability addresses
whether or not one has the knowledge and physical capacity to
accomplish a task. Willingness addresses if one has the drive,
desire, or motivation to accomplish a task. Resources addresses if
one has the time, money, technology, etc. to accomplish a task. Let
us compare and contrast the capability, willingness, and resources
of political versus military geographers to include cartographic
products in their work.
Perhaps a significant difference between many military geog-
raphers and their political geographer counterparts has to do with
their association with military practitioners and focus on applica-
tion. Many of the military geographers cited in this contribution are
current or former military members (whether active or reserve).
Thus, many military geographers like military members come from
a culture that has always relied on maps as a fundamental tool.
From the early days of basic training, military personnel learn to
read and rely on maps. As Corson and Palka (2004) point out,
military demands for improved geospatial technologies especially
in the areas of cartography, remote sensing, and global positioning
systems were instrumental in the advancements of these tech-
nologies and the development of Geographic Information Science
as a discipline. Corson and Palka also contend that geospatial
technologies provide the basis for the so-called ‘‘Revolution in
Military Affairs,’’ which has generally evolved to the more modest
concept of ‘‘network centric warfare.’’ Applied geospatial technol-
ogies permeate the US military and to a lesser extent other modern
armed forces. Perhaps this culture of technology with its geospatial
underpinnings has influenced military geographers both in the
military and academia such that they still recognize the power of
maps and are willing and eager to use them in their work.
Jouni Häkli, in another contribution in this intervention
addresses how the most recent theorizations of power and space
(postmodern approaches, critical geopolitics, and social theory for
example) challenge cartographic visualization. Is it possible that
some political geographers are uncomfortable or unwilling to use
maps and other cartographic visualizations because they question
the validity of trying to graphically demonstrate an objective
reality? Perhaps some political geographers are uncomfortable
with using maps because such devices were historically used by
geopoliticians for national aggrandizement and imperialist projects
resulting in unimaginable suffering for countless indigenous
peoples. In any case there is a question of willingness to use maps
on the part of at least some contemporary political geographers.
The second and third issue of capability and resources of
geographers to produce or procure cartographic products are
related. The western geography education establishment has seen
an increasing gap between geography and geographic information
science. Many universities offer separate geography and GIScience
 Author's personal copy
G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
degrees. Thus, human geographers tend to get minimal if any
training in the geo-techniques as geospatial technologies become
increasingly complex, integrated as GIScience, and become the
purview of specialists. Human geographers, including political
geographers may not have the skills to produce maps themselves,
or if they have minimal skills may either not be comfortable making
original maps or see the value of those maps. Additionally, as
students segregate early in their careers into human geographers
and technical specialists they may not develop the personal rela-
tionships where one can ask a technically oriented and skilled
colleague for help on producing custom cartographic products.
Finally, it is worth asking the question if cartographic support for
non-technical geographers has diminished as departments have
focused efforts on generating and supporting grant-funded
research. Thus, the political geographer who cannot produce their
own products, afford to outsource the production, or ask a techni-
cally skilled friend for a favor, may well decide that maps are too
much trouble and not really necessary.
Much of the military geographic literature in the US of the last
decade comes from faculty members or alumni of the US Military
Academy and other military/federal agencies. These organizations
tend to have greater resources to produce geospatial products
(e.g. dedicated cartographic support in the Department of Geo-
graphy and Environmental Engineering at West Point or support
from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency). The previously
mentioned cultural affinity for geospatial technologies that underpin
modern warfare might also mean military geographers have more
technical training and capacity to produce maps for their work.
There is danger in stereotyping any group. There certainly are
political geographers at certain institutions who use maps and
spatial analysis extensively (and even bridge the gap between
political and military geography) (Witmer & O’Loughlin, in press;
O’Loughlin & Witmer, in press), but arguably as this intervention
series implies they are the exception to the rule. Thus it is worth
considering if political and military geographers have differing
capabilities, willingness, and resources that cause the former to
generally eschew maps in their work while the latter embraces
them. If this is the case, then what if anything should be done to
enable and empower those political geographers who desire to
bring maps back into their work to do so? A first step is to improve
the capabilities of aspiring political geographers by encouraging or
requiring at least rudimentary training in cartography and other
geographic techniques so these geographers can produce their own
products. A second initiative might be in the area of resources
where academic geography departments and agencies with carto-
graphic production capabilities, and the professional journals could
make a concerted effort to support political geographic scholarship
with reduced cost or no cost cartographic production assistance. A
greater willingness on the part of publishers to grant free or
reduced price copyright permission for existing work for use in new
research would also increase the cartographic resources available.
The final issue is that of willingness. Those political geographers
who have a philosophical aversion to maps must consider if all
cartographic representations need be a tool of evil, or if there are
map designs that can enhance their work and convey their insights
and contributions. If so, they have opportunity to introduce a re-
imagined cartography free of past misuse.
Mapping ambivalence in American politics: a view from
political science
Nicole Mellow
Geographers may be debating the ‘‘place’’ of maps in their
discipline, but mapsdand geography itselfdremain relatively
337
neglected topics in political science, at least in the study of Amer-
ican politics. Ironically, this oversight is occurring at a time when
map production is easier than ever and when popular interest in
and use of maps is at a high point (Shin, 2009). Consider, for
example, the widespread fascination with ‘‘red versus blue’’
America. Since the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the
geographic distribution of party and ideological power in the
United States has been regular headline news. Online election
coverage in 2008 revealed a virtual public sphere littered with
maps of power in all of their forms and shades: popular vote,
electoral college vote, key demographic groups, with adjustments
for population size, with future projections, and so forth. Indeed,
a Google search of the phrase ‘‘red blue maps’’ in fall 2008 produced
over 10 million results; a Google image search produced over 13
million results. Despite the high degree of general interest in the
US’s red/blue contours, attention from scholars of American politics
has lagged (though some scholars in other subfieldsdnotably,
international relationsduse maps in understanding geographically
based conflict). This is troubling because political science, the
academic discipline devoted to the study of power, politics, and
government, should have much to offer to any discussion of red and
blue.
In the broad scholarship on US partisanship, a few political
scientists have explicitly attended to the ways that geography
informs (or fails to inform) polarization (e.g., Black & Black, 2007;
Fiorina, Abrams, & Pope, 2005; Gelman, Park, Shor, Bafumi, & Cor-
tina, 2008; Gimpel & Schuknecht, 2004; Mellow & Trubowitz,
2005). There are also political scientists who have a general interest
in geography-related issues, such as state policy diffusion (Berry &
Baybeck, 2005), social networks (Cho & Gimpel, 2007), or redis-
tricting (Brunell, 2008). Yet this work is a reasonably small minority
in a body of work by scholars of American politics that neither
favors geographic explanations for national politics nor relies on
maps to investigate or illustrate political occurrences.
Fantastic maps of recent US elections and related phenomena
exist, but, by and large, political scientists have not produced them.
For example, in 2004, Environmental Systems Research Institute,
the software development firm that launched GIS, provided CBS
news with a series of election-related demographic maps, and
physicists associated with the Center for the Study of Complex
Systems at the University of Michigan produced a series of carto-
graphic representations of the presidential election. By the 2008
election, as Shin (2009) has aptly pointed out, producing maps was
a virtual requisite for all mainstream media outlets. The creation of
political maps by those outside of political science is not just a fad of
the times (though it is that as well). Historical maps, including all
post-Civil War presidential election maps, are maintained online in
broad social science and statistical research archives (http://www2.
lib.virginia.edu/geostat/index.html). Interested individuals, such as
electrical design engineer David Leip, also maintain historical
election maps for public consumption (http://uselectionatlas.org/).
In short, while a political science department might seem a logical
source to which to turn for maps of power within the US, it is
probably not the first place to go looking for them.
This is a surprising departure from a political science tradition of
geographic interpretation. Notable mid-twentieth century political
scientists, including V. O. Key, Harold Gosnell, and Walter Dean
Burnham, used maps in their analyses of political power (e.g., Key,
1949; Gosnell, 1937; Burnham, 1971). Indeed, Key’s insightful
analyses led him to argue that sectional interests were the
‘‘building blocks’’ of the political parties, those preeminent orga-
nizers of power (Key, 1964 [1942]: 229). Key is surely one of the
most frequently cited political scientists, yet it appears that some of
his insights and methods, along with that of the others, have been
lost to the discipline. Why are political scientists not now at the
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338 G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
forefront in the mapping of power, ceding that role to scholars in
other disciplines and to ‘‘neogeographers’’ instead? Should we be
mapping? I have speculations in response to the first question and
an assertion in response to the second.
Perhaps the simple answer to why political scientists no longer
map American politics is that it is not a part of our current meth-
odological training. In the increasingly professionalized world of
political science graduate programs, students are quickly tracked
into courses of study that emphasize one dominant school of
thought and its attendant methodology over others. None of
today’s dominant approaches to studying American politicsdra-
tional choice, behavioral studies, political developmentdprivilege
mapmaking as a tool for comprehending power. Methodologically
speaking, it may be that we are simply not a visually oriented
discipline, preferring to understand politics through numbers or
text (at odds with how most Americans actually experience the
political world). Or it could be that we see maps only as a way to
visualize descriptive data, and this type of data is deemed too ‘‘low-
tech’’ for the sophisticated methods at our disposal. Regardless, for
job-anxious graduate students, demonstrating proficiency at one of
the favored methods is often seen as half the battle to a tenure-
track position, and so learning GIS is understandably not at the top
of the list of needed skills.
The deeper and more intriguing question, of course, is why this
is so. My speculation is that scholars of American politics have
a theoretical ambivalence about geography and power. One of the
first lessons taught in standard undergraduate Introduction to
American Politics courses has to do with the inter-sectional and
inter-state conflicts over the Constitution. From there, instructors
typically move on to cover topics including federalism, the electoral
college, and congressdall of which reveal the extent to which the
country’s political system is premised on geography. One of the
premier textbooks on US government used in introductory courses,
The Struggle for Democracy, is replete with cartographic represen-
tations of important political phenomena (Greenberg & Page,
2009). Consciously or unconsciously, we teach our students that
geography matters a lot to American politics.
Yet as scholars of American politics, we tend to downplay or
disregard the centrality of geography in our own research. I believe
this is at least partly the result of implicit assumptions upon which
much work on contemporary US politics is based. Most scholarship
assumes a historical process of nationalization, in which early
geographically based inequalities (e.g., slave holding versus non-
slave holding states, core manufacturing versus agricultural
periphery, Puritan versus Presbyterian Scot) gradually gave way,
leading to today’s national liberal community. This forward march
of progress is told through a series of celebrated markers. The Civil
War produced the country’s ‘‘second founding.’’ The New Deal
jumpstarted a nationally integrated industrial economy and
nationalized politics along class lines. Two world wars and the Cold
War reinforced liberal ideological unity (contra fascism and
communism) while spurring economic development in the poorer
regions of the South and West. Finally, 1960s civil rights achieve-
ments completed the task of bringing the South into the national
fold. Now, with democracy being exported abroad, geographic
context no longer matters.
This teleological reading of the country’s political history is
consistent with the narrative of liberal progress. Yet, I believe the
result for scholars of US politics is an ambivalence about the
continued role of geography in shaping the American nation: at
some level, we know and we teach that where one stands depends
on where one sits, yet accepting this aphorism about geography
means acknowledging enduring limits on progress with the project
of achieving US national ideals. It also means recognizing the
partiality of our own interpretations (the view from the ivory tower
is not necessarily the same as the view from the rest of the country,
red or blue).
This ambivalence pervades our theoretical assumptions and has
practical consequences. Believing in a national polity, many
instinctively favor methods that universalize or that treat the
nation as a whole (i.e., national surveys). When mainstream polit-
ical scientists disaggregate to understand conflict and processes,
they often categorize along the lines of interests or individual
identity, asking which group differences matter to outcomes and
power. This is perfectly reasonable, yet neither interests nor social
identities are distributed evenly or randomly throughout the
country. There are more union members in some states, more
agriculturalists in others, more Christian Evangelicals in some,
more secularists in others, and so forth.
Not every question of power needs a map as part of its answer,
but given the country’s representation schema and the uneven
distribution of identities and interests, greater attention to geog-
raphy is warranted. Certainly, more regular reliance on maps would
draw attention to groups’ geographic concentrations; it may even
help explicate variation in groups’ political resources. For example,
the difference between the first, popularly distributed ‘‘red/blue’’
map of the 2000 presidential election, depicting electoral college
results, and a cartogram of that 2000 vote is a reminder of the anti-
democratic bias of the electoral college that was so evident in that
election (in which George Bush won with sufficient electoral votes
but a minority of the popular vote). Or, Fig. 3, below, is useful to
help make clear why farming states wield disproportionate power
in the Senatedand thus why US agricultural subsidies persist
despite repeated demands in international trade talks that they be
curbed.
In an earlier forum in this journal, Gary King suggested that
geographers’ maps do political scientists a service by drawing our
attention to ‘‘features of data and the political world that we would
not otherwise have considered.’’ (King, 1996: 161) Yet because it is
our job to figure out what information might be important to
consider, we should be more broadly equipped to make the maps
that can aid both in our analyses and in our presentation of
findings.
This kind of use of maps, however, envisions geography as
a proxy for other factorsdeconomic or socialdthat happen to have
a spatial distribution: for example, manufacturing employment,
advanced degree holders, or Catholics. For many political scientists,
it is not geography that is important but the factors for which it is
presumed to be a proxy. This is why, in King’s formulation, geog-
raphers are useful to political scientists: they help refine the data
collection process. But as suggested by John Agnew’s remarks in the
same (1996) forum, and as I have argued elsewhere (2008), geog-
raphy is a meaningful political concept apart from and not simply
Fig. 3. States in proportion to the number of residents per senator. This cartogram, and
others, can be found in Greenberg and Page (2009). Reproduced with permission from
Mike Ward, University of Washington.
 Author's personal copy
G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
reducible to other, economic or social group, factors. From this
vantage, one can reverse King’s logic and argue instead that polit-
ical scientists are useful to geographers because our discipline’s
comparative advantages are the conceptualizations and insights
regarding politics itself. Reintroducing maps to political science
then becomes all the more imperative because a broad range of
disciplinary toolsdincluding historical, interpretative, and rhetor-
ical analysisdcan enhance the enterprise of political geography.
My argument is that political scientists of every methodological
stripe need to get back into the business of mapping. It can help us
do better work, and it can help us make our work more valuable and
accessible to other disciplines and to the public more generally.
Political scientists such as Gosnell, Key, and Burnham were not just
attentive to geography in their research, they helped construct
methods that made the discipline useful for understanding real
world political phenomena. They were also of a long generation of
political scientists that went from the academy to public service and
back again. The relative silence of political scientists in today’s
conversation about ‘‘red/blue’’ is not just a reflection of theoretical
and methodological shortcomings, it is part of a larger and worri-
some trend in political science training that reveres the profession at
the expense of real world relevancy. Mapping is one way for political
science to shake off some of its insularity and make its expertise
once again relevant and accessible to the broad public it serves.
Activist cartography: enabling alternative political spaces
Sebastian Cobarrubias and Maribel Casas-Cortes
Calls for geographers to re-engage cartography have signaled
how the ‘map’ as an object has been abandoned for all but
discursive deconstruction or technical output, or how maps are
missing from geographic publications, especially on the human
side (Dodge & Perkins, 2008). While perhaps more maps are being
produced than at any time in the known past and society is argu-
ably going through a ‘‘Mapping Revolution’’ (Hughes, 2007), few
critical geographers have re-engaged mapping as a tool for their
intellectual and political work. The field of critical cartography has
additionally highlighted how, not only is mapmaking increasing
quantitatively, but that creative and innovative forms of
mapmaking are emerging in many social spaces, often ‘‘outside’’ or
‘‘in the margins’’ of geography departments. Critical cartographers
have signaled initiatives from creative Google Map mashups to the
vast ‘field’ (with no desire of canonizing it) of ‘Art and Mapping’
(Cosgrove, 2006; Crampton, 2008; Pickles, 2004). Where less
attention has been paid though is to cartography produced by social
movements (Pickles & Cobarrubias, 2008). While calls to use maps
are proliferating and attention to other ‘spaces’ of mapping is
increasing, we see a dearth of engagement with these ‘militant’ or
‘activist’ cartographies despite their trajectories, their bibliogra-
phies, infrastructures and influence. The point of this contribution
is to signal how a growing trend among social movements in
different countries is deploying the traditional research tool of
cartography in new ways and to new ends.
Cartography, often labeled in the past as an instrument of fixa-
tion to facilitate appropriation of territory by established power
structures (Harley, 1989), becomes a counter tool for anti-systemic
movements. The current uses of mapmaking by some social
movements to advance their political work suggests how the
‘‘critical tradition’’ in political geography need not be antithetical to
cartography. The existing conundrum of ‘maps versus critical
theory’ suggested in several of the above contributions (Herb, Häkli,
& Corson) may begin to be superseded through practices such as
activist cartography. As both researchers and practitioners of
activist cartography, we delve into and introduce this sphere of
339
mapping practice for the remainder of this contribution signaling
a potentially distinct relationship between critical theory, politics
and maps. This is followed by a call for other geographers to
reconsider their own relationship to maps.
While acknowledging historical examples of map use for social
justice purposes (see Bunge, 1969), we want to focus on a more
recent trend. We could be discussing the critical maps published in
journals such as Le Monde Diplomatique, or the networks of
indigenous cartography and ‘other’ ways of mapping. We definitely
identify those practices within a very proximate ‘field of affinity’, but
our focus will be on a trajectory that is carving out its own genealogy
of struggle, experiments, references and networks. It is a trajectory
composed of various social movements committed to struggles that
include a critique of capital, the state, borders, and the appropriation
of knowledge through intellectual-property laws. In particular we
refer to social movements that are inheritors of the cycle of global
justice mobilization, and influenced by alternative political thinking
such as Zapatismo or traditions of Workers’ Autonomy. For several
years now there has been a proliferation of mapmaking among the
more anti-systemic wings of these social movements.
These activist maps have different forms and goals: from
cartoonish agitprop found in zines and flyers to communicate
a point; to street maps for particular protests designating targets,
safe zones and tactical areas. Other mappings include appropria-
tions of existing map interfacesdsuch as Google Mapsdto create
‘‘mutated cartographies’’ that record movement experiences and
memory, or highlight targets for a campaign.
The maps we focus on though go a step further, explicitly made
with the intent to apply movement politics and thinking to the
mapmaking process: from conception, to research, to design, to
production, to distribution. These movement politics include an
emphasis on participatory or direct democracy, a deep suspicion of
social hierarchies, and a critique of state-centric thinking and
politics. Activist groups in this sense take seriously some of the
conclusions of the critical cartography subfield. If ‘‘maps provide
the very conditions of possibility for the worlds we inhabit and the
subjects we become’’ (Pickles, 2004: 5) then the mapping process
itself becomes a site of politics. It is our contention that social
movements employ spatial and cartographic knowledges in order
to analyze and transform existing spaces and prefigure alternative
ones. This is the case of Cartographies of the Straits of Gibraltar
made by a network based in Andalusia and northern Morocco,
including groups such as Hackitectura and Indymedia Estrecho.
This network of activist hackers, artists, and architects created
a map that rethinks the border between Spain and North Africa.
Instead of accepting the border as a fixed entity that separates ‘us’
from ‘them,’ this map conveys border relationships. This includes
capital flows, police networks and jurisdiction as well as migrant-
flows and activist networks. The map ignores the geopolitical and
epistemological borders naturalized as the dividing line of the sea.
Instead, particular flows are followed across the Mediterranean,
between Europe and Africa: the Moroccan government’s foreign
debt repayments, immigrant remittances, European corporate
investment or cell phone and Internet coverage.
The resulting map does not reproduce the border as a space of
separation, but invokes it as a site of connection and reciprocal
flows (see Fig. 4). The border ceases to be a line but seems to
transform into a region or sphere of political action and actors (be
they migrants, states, international bodies, smugglers, human
rights activists, lawyers, etc.)
Furthermore the notion of cartography employed in this
experiment is not limited to the 2-D object normally labeled a map,
but is linked to a series of spatial experiments that try to enact and
create the territory being mapped. In this manner the injunction of
critical cartography, that mapping ‘precedes the territory’ and
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340 G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342

Fig. 4. ‘‘Cartografia del Estrecho,’’ 2004 (detail). Map of the Straits of Gibraltar made by the Fadaiat collective (including Indymedia Estrecho, Hackitectura.net, Casa de Iniciativas 1.5,
and Indymedia Canarias). Icons refer to different items, places and flows that constitute a border region and economy with its own specific socio-political dynamics. Highlighted on
this section of the map are: migrant-flows; migrant detention centers; border surveillance and important police bases; outsourced production facilities; and sites of mass social
contestation. Grayscale reproduction. Full color version of the map is accessible at: http://mcs.hackitectura.net/show_image.php?id¼593. See the following websites for further
information on the project: http://mcs.hackitectura.net/tiki-index.php?page¼CARTOMADIAQ, http://estrecho.indymedia.org/feature/display/67315/index.php.

creates it, comes into being. The mapping of flows across the
Spanish Moroccan border includes items such as cell phone
coverage and wifi accessibility. As Collyer (2007) has demonstrated,
access to these wireless technologies is not only a matter for
a privileged minority but is key for many migrants trying to cross
this border. In this regard, attempts were made during this
mapping project to create cross-border wireless streams in order to
hold transnational workshops and talks on items of concern to
people working on border issues. The infrastructures laid down for
this project later served to recompile migrant testimonies sent by
SMS messages, email and cell phone calls after the mass border
crossing attempts that ended so violently in the autumn of 2005.
The ‘invisible border jumper’ in this manner not only had a public
voice as an agent in the media but was also able to link in to migrant
solidarity networks and legal aid more rapidly than had previously
been the case.
Let’s note several aspects of this map shared by similar projects.
With regards to distribution, access to the map is open and public,
in this case produced under a Creative Commons license allowing
for free reprinting. The process of production included broad
networks of input, putting prime value on participation. The map’s
focus was to suggest tools, targets, possible alliances and different
spaces of action for movements, in this case especially among those
working for immigrant rights and what is known as ‘‘freedom of
movement’’.
This is just one example of a growing practice occurring across
sites in Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America
and South Asia. In addition to multiple concrete map projects
though, there exists the development of activist mapping infra-
structures and activist mapper community building: mapping
workshops at social movements’ conferences and convergences;
list-serves, online journals and archives emerging as networking
spaces; the publication of atlases (Mogel & Bhagat, 2007; Thomp-
son, 2009) and cartographically focused movements’ journals (such
as AREA Chicago [not the Area of the RGS-IBG]) as sites of example
sharing and debate. The dedication to applying movement politics
to the mapmaking process has also lead to experiments with open-
source hacker made cartography software. Beta versions of some of
these mapping programs have already been released pointing to
new directions in the creation of alternative mapping infrastruc-
tures that could work alongside or against other platforms be they
Google Maps or ESRI software (see Mapomatix http://mapomatix.
sourceforge.net and CarTac http://cartac.gnoxys.net). Thus, more
than a couple of mapping projects, we may be witnessing an alter-
native ‘field’ of mapping that runs parallel to other developments in
map use, geographic theory, and movement genealogies. Despite
the growth of activist cartography into a trend and its engagement
with important geographical questions there has as of yet been little
attention given by geographers to this field of political mapping
practice (Crampton & Krygier, 2006; Pickles, 2006).
The significance of these activist cartography efforts goes
beyond the exercise of applying post-structural theory or network
thinking to a map. With regards to the Cartographies of the Straits
of Gibraltar, in the context of the shifting political geographies of
the EU and its externalization of border policing to non-EU coun-
tries, these social movement maps provide a more up to date
analysis of changing realities at the border than a map of nation-
state boxes with arrows signaling migrant source countries. The
growth of an activist mapping community and the use of these
activist maps in addressing shifting spatial realities with new
methods and understandings of visualization serves as a reiteration
of what Guntram Herb has stated above that ‘‘mapping is critical
 Author's personal copy
G.H. Herb et al. / Political Geography 28 (2009) 332–342
and the critical needs to be mapped’’. Rather than a sexy experi-
ment, the critical application of a rethought cartography for the
sake of enabling new political analyses and goals as a regular part of
a social movement’s toolkit signals the importance and potential of
maps for these forms of alternative politics.
Besides attuning other geographers’ attention to these trends
we are also making a request: to re-engage cartography, and not
rely on the text as a primary medium. Critical human geography,
which addresses many of the same issues as these activist cartog-
raphies, may have been too easily convinced to cede cartography to
those preoccupied with the ‘rendering’ of representations of
‘reality’ for government agencies or private companies, allowing
itself to be cornered into the space of the text and in particular the
scholarly article. While this may have proved of use, that particular
textual site is also quite crowded, with many addressing crucial
spatial questions from without the discipline of geography. Might
there not be other sites of intellectual exploration and political
engagement, such as ‘activist cartographies’, that could allow other
questions to be raised and other audiences to be spoken to? What if
one were to appropriate the means of [cartographic] production
that lay behind the doors of our departments? This is a call for
hands-on engagement with mapmaking for critical geographic
work, to visually engage in current spatial transformations (from
global capitalism to the war on terror) and alternative modes of
information distribution that mapmaking may facilitate.
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