Matt Wilson and I presented on our project around the "Essentially Subjective" aspects of map design and I got to get a feel for what the ICA is all about. On my flight from D.C. to San Diego (I was selected to be a student assistant at the Esri UC) I luckily had enough sense about me to jot down some thoughts on presentations/moments of ICC that I found particularly compelling. After returning home from these back to back conferences (but seriously, who else is still trying to catch up on sleep??) I've finished polishing up those jottings and, after adding some pictures, they're ready for public consumption.
Though there were plenty of interesting talks, tours, and workshops to attend throughout the week of the ICC, there are five presentations that, for one reason or another, resonated with me and my work. I'd like to take a moment to highlight the work of these awesome researchers and cartographers here. In the order of their occurrence, they are....
3511.2 hóhta’hané: Mapping Genocide & Restorative Justice In Native America - Annita Lucchesi Annita shared with us her experiences in her work which sets out to decolonize cartography through the creation maps which tell stories and offer opportunities for healing for/by/to Native American peoples. A woman of Southern Cheyenne descent, Annita’s work pushes the boundaries of previous conversations around indigenous mapping by employing the theory and tools of cartography on her own terms. As she proudly asserts, “For hundreds of years, settlers have been mapping indigenous lands without consultation or direction from those who know it best; I'm proud to take part in ending that power dynamic as an indigenous cartographer.” Throughout the presentation, she presents us with a series of maps on topics ranging from nationhood and human rights to trauma and genocide. For each map, Annita reveals the intentional design decisions she has made while creating each map- decisions which promote her goal of producing maps which “facilitate a dialogue on healing” and craft opportunities for “restorative justice for indigenous peoples.” I look forward to citing Annita’s work in my dissertation’s literature review to discuss the emancipatory effects of maps, especially ones that don’t align with traditional cartographic principles.
4108.3 Cartograms in the Making: An Experiment in Aesthetic Design - Barry Kronenfeld and David Viertel While cartograms are most certainly a popular approach to data viz, Barry and David point out that there are an unlimited number of ways that one can stretch and pull the map to represent data values. As such, they set out to explore what kinds of cartographic forms (I might even refer to this as ‘distortion’) produces aesthetics which are pleasing to the eye. They begin by discussing a pilot study they completed with a small group of students. This pilot study attempted to uncover themes and patterns that might emerge from observing the students create cartograms. The results were inconclusive; however, by making some tweaks to the software students used to produce their cartograms, the study will continue and they’ll hopefully present another round of analysis/results at a future conference. The second portion of the talk consisted of a real time survey of audience members on their preferences toward different cartogram forms. For example, on the screen there would be two versions of the same state- each had been equally distorted though one was horizontally stretched and one that was vertically stretched. For almost all four questions there was a 2:1 preference for one of the options. This is super interesting and makes it clear that there are still many nooks and crannies cognitive science has yet to seep into throughout the world of map design. I look forward to seeing results from further study and gaining a further understanding around the role of aesthetics in map design. [sorry, Barry and David, for some reason all my pics of you turned out blurry!]
6210.1 A content analysis of climate change maps in the United States news media - Carolyn Fish What does climate change look like? Well, it depends on who you ask. Through the efforts of a meticulously detailed content analysis, Carolyn has set out to understand the visual rhetoric of maps employed to develop/support a narrative of climate change in the media. Her data set consists of 200 print/digital maps that representing the range of topics related to climate change, including causes, impacts, adaptation and mitigation strategies. These maps have been produced throughout the last six years by different agencies (NOAA, National Geographic, NASA, etc) found through a variety of sources (library databases, personal collections, social media). Through a process of multidimensional scaling, Carolyn is finding where salaries and differences occur across her coding results, revealing patterns that particular mapping agencies are falling into when working to contribute to the narrative around clime change. This presentation reflected a portion of Carolyn’s dissertation, which I look forward to reading in its entirety soon. I also plan to take up Carolyn’s methodology (adopted from Ian Muehlenhaus) and apply content analysis to maps produced through participatory projects.
6703.3 What Color is Your Brain? - Sara Irina Fabrikant Sara presented on an absolutely fascinating on an experiment exploring the ways in which color influences perception. She begins by presenting with two choropleth maps which, except for the color (one is varying values of blue, one is varying values of red) the maps are exactly the same. She explains how people trust the map that is blue more than the one that is red. From here, I’m leaning forward, totally enthralled by where this is going! Sara and her collaborators set out to survey three groups of people (neuroscientists, geographers, and folks who weren’t experts in either of these areas) to see how different color schemes impacted participants’ judgments of the trustworthiness of data being visualized through either maps and brain scan images. While it was predicted that experts would be least susceptible to be affected by a particular color scheme, neuroscientists were more likely to trust rainbow color schemes and that geographers exhibited the largest differences between color preference and trust ratings. After seeing this talk, I am interested in completing my own experiment to judge the perceptions of maps which are produced through participatory projects.
Some other highlights of the week:
I got to spend some time promoting the New Maps Plus program with Matt.
Aaaaand, I got to sing the conference anthem at the opening ceremonies. As you can tell from the picture, I totally loved it and want to do it again.
For some final thoughts, I'd like to come clean about a major disappointment I faced while attending this conference. While I was excited to attend a meeting that was catered to a global audience, I couldn't help but notice how tilted the scale was in favor of white male attendees. I urge my fellow cartographers to reflect on what it is they themselves can be doing to increase the diversity of our meetings. I urge my fellow cartographers to reflect on what it is we can be doing as an organization to increase the diversity of our meetings. We can and must do better.
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