CfP: Arctic Mapping Conference: National Maritime Museum. July 2017
Mapping the past, exploiting the future: cartographies and understandings of the Arctic.
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
21-22 July 2017.
Royal Museums Greenwich
will host an interdisciplinary conference which aims to interrogate the
processes and products of mapping the Arctic, to coincide with the
opening of a major new exhibition, Death in the Ice: the shocking story
of Franklin's final expedition, about John Franklin's voyage to look
for a North-West Passage, and the searches for those involved which
followed. At a moment when the story of Franklin's 1845 expedition is
being exploited by various commercial and political
interests, we seek to broaden and deepen our understanding of voyages
of exploration, surveying and mapping practices, and their subsequent
narration.
This topic is particularly
relevant given increasing nuance in work on the social and political
implications of cartography, and recent moves in the history of
cartography to include work on reception and use. Although the Franklin
voyage
and searches are the taking off point for the conference, we are
interested in papers dealing with cartography in this region from the
sixteenth century to the present day.
We particularly encourage papers on (though not limited to) the following
themes:
- surveying and resource exploitation
- countermapping in the Arctic
- Inuit mapping traditions and understandings of the landscape
- relationships between different genres of inscription
- mapping and surveying in unstable environments
- mapping and geopolitics
- administrative cartography and international law
We anticipate papers will be 20 minutes, with additional time for questions.
Please an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief biography to research@rmg.co.uk by 1 March 2017.