CRP 5280

Mapping and Countermapping

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

This hybrid practice-discourse course introduces students to the ideas, debates and practices in critical cartography and digital geography. How, who and towards what purposes are spatial relationships represented through maps? We will approach mapping with an emphasis on the ethos of countermapping to make more legible those perspectives, claims and epistemologies that are generally underrepresented. We will discuss how new mapping technologies and novel big data are shifting the mapping landscape, what new tensions and possibilities arise, and how these new tools supplant or reinforce existing power dynamics. Students will "read" and critique maps to understand the design, information, context surrounding the creation of the map. We will be learning tools and software to create our own narrative maps and countermaps, with the aim of using these in a final research project.  

When Offered Fall.

Satisfies Requirement Satisfies an advanced methods course for MRP students. 

Comments Preferred prerequisite: familiarity with GIS, spatial data and HTML/JS/CSS is useful but not required.

• Students will be able to read and critique maps and texts.
• Students will be able to understand the discourse in mapping and countermapping literature.
• Students will develop an introductory-level understanding of QGIS, Mapbox GL, and Felt.
• Students will be able to clearly communicate a narrative through mapmaking, contextualization, textual description, and presentation that demonstrates multiple ways of understanding a spatial question in urban development.

View Enrollment Information