-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Territory and Cartography: Politics, History, Techniques- AAG
2010 Washington DC
Date:   Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:09:16 -0600
From:

Stuart Elden [[log in to unmask]]

eply-To:
To:


Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers, 14-18th April 2010, Washington DC.

Call for Papers - Territory and Cartography: Politics, History, Techniques

Session organisers: Jeremy Crampton (Georgia State) and Stuart Elden (Durham)


The relation between cartography and territory seems well-known. State territories are one of the key objects of cartographic work, both in terms of their depiction on geopolitical maps and in terms of the state agencies that produce maps of their territory. Here we want to reverse the question: to what extent is cartography productive of territory? If territory can be understood as a political technology, comprising a range of techniques for the measurement of land and the control of terrain, then cartography, alongside land surveying and the military, is one of those techniques; part of what might be conceived of as state territorial strategies.

This session aims to bring together papers analysing maps politically in terms of their relation to the state and its territory, drawing on a range of historical and geographical contexts. A focus on the techniques involved is particularly welcome, but the papers should principally speak to the question: if we know that the map is not the territory, to what extent is it still productive of it?

Proposals should be sent to both [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by 5th October 2009.

Should the papers form a sufficiently coherent collection, there is the possibility of a follow-up workshop and/or publication at some future point.



Professor Stuart Elden
Geography Department, Durham University