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Mapping society: an ingenious but today outdated map


 
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1. Title Title of document Mapping society: an ingenious but today outdated map
 
2. Creator Author's name, affiliation, country Edoardo Boria; Department of Political Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Italy
 
3. Subject Discipline(s)
 
3. Subject Keyword(s)
 
4. Description Abstract Today the scientific world shows great interest in visual culture. This is a transversal phenomenon to
national disciplines and contexts, given that the same tendency to reorient knowledge and organize it
around visual paradigms is to be found in different areas of contemporary western thought.
In this reevaluation of the visual culture is collocated the present rediscovery of the heuristic value of the
geographical map, the use of which today has undoubtedly crossed the narrow ambit of geographical
studies to find growing use with specialists of other disciplines too, attracted by the capacity of maps to
synthetically highlight significant spatial correlations of the phenomena being studied.
Nonetheless, like every scientific instrument it comes up with processes of adaptation to the changing
scientific contexts, just as the traditional Cartesian configuration of the map needs to be updated in order to
be in line with the new post-modern scientific paradigms and with the reality of the contemporary world.
The analysis of these dynamics of contemporary cartography is here traced back to the case of a specific
cartographic method: the choropleth map, or mosaic diagram. This represents one of the most fortunate
intuitions in the history of cartography, introduced by Charles Dupin in 1826 and is an exemplary
application of positivist scientific thought. Even though the introduction of the choropleth map was the start
of a fruitful period for the subject with the ceaseless development of statistical cartography, today it seems
inadequate for the understanding of the multi-faceted contemporary reality.
After highlighting the reasons for the success of the choropleth map, this paper makes a number of
considerations on its present limitations and the need, as far as cartographical studies are concerned, to
press on beyond the frontier of innovation. In particular, stimulating starting points to reason on the future
of the geographical map are offered by the recent success of the anamorphic maps.
 
5. Publisher Organizing agency, location
 
6. Contributor Sponsor(s)
 
7. Date (YYYY-MM-DD) 2013-07-02
 
8. Type Status & genre Peer-reviewed Article
 
8. Type Type
 
9. Format File format PDF
 
10. Identifier Uniform Resource Identifier http://j-reading.org/index.php/geography/article/view/28
11. Source Journal/conference title; vol., no. (year) J-Reading - Journal of Research and Didactics in Geography; J-Reading 1-2013
 
12. Language English=en en
 
13. Relation Supp. Files
 
14. Coverage Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.)
 
15. Rights Copyright and permissions

The Author assigns to the Nuova Cultura and to Italian Association of Geography Teachers all rights under copyright that can exist in and to the submitted paper. The Author warrants that the paper and images (photos, maps, graphs etc.) are original and that he/she is the Author of the submitted contribution and its parts; in the case of images taken by other publications, the Author must provide a specific authorization and must pay in advance any copyright.

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