Mapping Syrian Refugee Border Crossings: A Critical, Feminist PerspectiveMeghan Kelly, University of Wisconsin-MadisonUNHCR calls the ongoing Syrian conflict “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.” Since 2011, violence has led to nearly 200,000 lives lost and over 3 million have fled across borders throughout the region. Western media has documented Syrian border crossing stories through riveting multimedia journalism. While the written and photographic reporting of Syrian stories uses captivating imagery and testimonials to convey the traumatic experiences of individuals, these experiences are limited in the accompanying maps. Many cartographic conventions silence the experiences of individual Syrians and negate emotions, perils, and geopolitical issues linked to borders. Through a critical feminist lens, I analyzed 86 maps published by Western sources and developed an alternative mapping technique that more accurately reflects the lived realities of six Syrian women. By rendering Syrian border experiences visible with cartography, my work enhances interaction between mapping, the public, and Syrian stories and gives Syrians a pronounced geographic voice.
https://speakerdeck.com/nvkelso/mapping-syrian-refugee-border-crossingsTransit Map Design
Dennis McClendon, Chicago CartoGraphics
A look at how various designers—including me—have approached the special design challenges of maps showing public transportation networks.
Alt-Transport Movements of the 1890s (10 minute presentation)
Michael Leverett Dorn, Long Island UniversityTim Cresswell (On the Move), and Glen Norcliffe (Ride to Modernity) have directed the attention of mobilities researchers to social movements on behalf of non-dominant transit and transportation modalities. A cultural geographer by training, I propose to highlight early initiatives to improve travel and trade in Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, wheelmen (and wheelwomen) on both sides of the border allied with canal interests to improve local and regional travel. Images to be featured in the talk include a tourists' guidebook published by the Niagara Falls Advertiser in 1899, and a "side path map" published by the New York State Division of the League of American Wheelmen a year later.
https://speakerdeck.com/nvkelso/road-books-and-side-paths
