Narrative Cartography: From Mapping Stories to the Narrative of Maps and Mapping

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the multiple ways of envisioning the relationships between maps and narratives. This is approached from a map making perspective. Throughout the process of editing this special issue, we have identified two main types of relationships. Firstly, maps have been used to represent the spatio-temporal structures of stories and their relationships with places. Oral, written and audio-visual stories have been mapped extensively. They raise some common cartographic challenges, such as improving the spatial expression of time, emotions, ambiguity, connotation, as well as the mixing of personal and global scales, real and fictional places, dream and reality, joy and pain. Secondly, the potential of maps as narratives and the importance of connecting the map with the complete mapping process through narratives is addressed. Although the potential of maps to tell stories has already been widely acknowledged, we emphasize the increasing recognition of the importance of developing narratives that critically describe the cartographic process and context in which maps unfold - the core idea of post-representational cartography. Telling the story about how maps are created and how they come to life in a broad social context and in the hands of their users has become a new challenge for mapmakers.