Cultural Mapping As Cultural Inquiry

This edited collection provides an introduction to the emerging interdisciplinary field of cultural mapping, offering a range of perspectives that are international in scope. Cultural mapping is a mode of inquiry and a methodological tool in urban planning, cultural sustainability, and community development that makes visible the ways local stories, practices, relationships, memories, and rituals constitute places as meaningful locations. The chapters address themes, processes, approaches, and research methodologies drawn from examples in Australia, Canada, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy, Malaysia, Malta, Palestine, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Ukraine. Contributors explore innovative ways to encourage urban and cultural planning, community development, artistic intervention, and public participation in cultural mapping—recognizing that public involvement and artistic practices introduce a range of challenges spanning various phases of the research process, from the gathering of data, to interpreting data, to presenting "findings" to a broad range of audiences. The book responds to the need for histories and case studies of cultural mapping that are globally distributed and that situate the practice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Nancy Duxbury is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal, and Co-coordinator of its Cities, Cultures, and Architecture Research Group.

W.F. Garrett-Petts is Professor of English and Associate Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies at Thompson Rivers University, Canada.

David MacLennan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Thompson Rivers University, Canada.