Three Subclaims

1. Connection between cartograph and Idenitity
2. The body and how it influences our experinces with space and perceptions of navigating maps
3. Historical relations to maping

Claim #2: The body and how it influences our experiences with space and perception of navigating maps.

Ayesha Ramchandran’s calim regarding the body is interesting on the idea that I have never realized what it really meant. She states that the body has some sort of influence on how we relate to our environments. The idea that our physical experience in this world shapes our perception of space and mapping is so interesting. For instance, how someone from a populated urban area might perceive distance and moment differently than someone who lived in a rual setting. The aspect of how my life that I have lived can shape my map differently to another who lives in a different area than me and has to “draw the same map,” never sparked realization until now.

This is why influences from the body matter – It challenges the notion of objective maping/maping accurately. Because what we do in everyday life is impacted by so much around us, mapping/cartography is also affected by us (the cartographer) as well.

Many people believe that maping is something explicit and are a neutral represionation of the world. However, what we noticed while looking at the all the maps in the library was something totally different. The maps did not look the same, and different people had different ideas how one area looked. Thoes who were richer, upscaled the map to make it more fancy, and thoes who favored one area more, put more time into making that place drawn to scale. But it could be the same for the map we know today. The people who made the map today showed us that there is bais that comes with mapping (ex: Europeans have made Eruope seem as big as other countreis, but in reality it isn’t true).

This is why realizing that mapping and a person’s perspective is connected is imporant. It allows us to understand that it can lead to more inclusive pratices in cartography that takes into account of everyone’s diverse perspectives and experiances, which is somthing that is culturally important in today’s society.