Considered by many to be accurate and neutrally constructed representations of landscape, maps are assumed to be free from bias and prejudice. However, a critical cartographic exploration of maps and mapping practice reveals the map to be a fabricated eidetic re-presentation of landscape that embodies the subjective values of the mapmaker. Through technological advances in mapping practice such as GIS (Geographic Information System) and Google Earth, maps and mapmaking have become seamlessly integrated into the shaping of contemporary urban landscapes, further removing designers from the direct experience of the landscapes they design. This practicum seeks to reconcile the tendency to map landscape through these disembodied processes by placing particular emphasis on the agency of the landscape designer as cartographer. Building on existing literature, this research investigates a phenomenological approach to landscape that is focused on the lived experience of reading and writing maps. Focusing on a philosophical investigation this practicum explores the question; what are the implications for the practice of Landscape Architecture if designers begin to explore a phenomenological cartographic practice?

Human social interactions imbue the world with meaning, transforming abstract spaces into lived places. Given the digital conduits of much modern social interaction, online narratives increasingly affect material places. Yet the emerging glut of online information demands new methods of investigating place narratives at multiple scales. Drawing on novel geographic visualizations of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of photographs of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands posted on the website Flickr, this study shows that online portrayals are 1) highly uneven in terms of distribution, visibility, and content, 2) fundamentally influenced by "real-world" geographies, 3) often culturally reductive, and 4) made to appear unduly exhaustive by the naturalizing visual slant of the internet as a medium of communication. These processes stand to influence how places are constructed in the information age, especially given the presence of "digital divides" that work against internet access for much of the world's population.

Rather than offering a traditional interpretation of what constitutes a spatial queer politics, which Brown and Knopp (2006) describe as "claiming space," this dissertation seeks instead to explore a Foucauldian politics of disappearing, of incoherency, and illegibility. I call this the politics of invisibility, describing a queer politics that questions visibility at every avenue and that is extremely critical of the ways that queer bodies are often made less complex, indeed less visible, when "gays and lesbians" are incorporated more and more into the mainstream. The work does this through three different papers. First, it lays down the theory of the politics of invisibility through a Foucauldian analysis of the changing nature of heteronormativity since queer theory's origin in the early 1990's. Second, it asks whether new directions in mapping gays and lesbians based on problematic census data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses should be reconsidered in light of this changing heteronormativity. Third, it explores the radical potential of a gay male subculture that is striving to become more visible and by doing so ruptures the taken-for-granted no-tions of how traditional forms of masculinity should be interpreted in a queer theoretical framework.

Blockchains, like many “disruptive” digital media, continue to garner significant academic and popular attention about what they are. Recent critical provocations in geography and cognate disciplines shift lines of enquiry to interrogate the material realities of digital technologies, emphasizing instead how they are lived. Inspired by critical and feminist thinking, the primary task of this dissertation is to follow the latter mode of analysis and present a critical cartography of blockchains, loosely defined. The critical cartography presented in this study sketches a conceptual and methodological map of context-specific and intimate blockchains practices I participated in and experienced from 2013-2020, in a mostly Canadian context. I construct this cartography by using a variety of autobiographical and auto-ethnographic methods that are sometimes buttressed by more conventional qualitative methods. Research reveals that blockchains have the capacity to become economic in a diversity of ways, enacting multiple rowdy characteristics of capitalism, a phenomenon I term rambunctious capitalism. Rambunctious economic flows actualizing through blockchains rely on different situations of power to enact nomadic subject/ivities in a variety of spatial, temporal, and material contexts. Specifically, the blockchain practices addressed in this dissertation highlight the embodiment of joyful moments for a pregnant body working in Toronto’s crypto-economy, the algorhythmic impacts of blockchain hard fork events, where code participates in the instantiation of diverse temporalities that produce uneven geographies, and the materialization of Canadian policy discourses about blockchains that position and, in some cases, implement these media as smart solutions to civic service delivery. Findings presented throughout this study contribute to feminist and digital geographies by offering autobiographical, auto-ethnographic, and intimate accounts of blockchains, and how they are practiced as lived and multiple realities. In addition, this dissertation also adds ethnographic research to the now expansive multi-disciplinary scholarship on blockchains and cryptocurrencies to understand how these media operate in specific contexts. / Graduate

A emergência de práticas engajadas a utilizar os mapas como instrumento de contestação, como é o caso da metodologia de mapeamento participativo, aliada a efervescência teórica em torno de fazer a crítica aos mapas, sobretudo a partir de Brian Harley, constitui a cartografia crítica. Os mapas participativos surgem como proposta para fortalecer a defesa de comunidades tradicionais em contexto de conflito territorial. Assim, uma infinidade de experiências e técnicas é desenvolvida com a proposta de contrapor representações cartográficas hegemônicas. Enquanto isso, no plano teórico, os mapas tem o caráter de documento científico neutro questionado e são situados em meio a relações de poder. Historicamente, os mapas foram e ainda são utilizados em estratégias de dominação e existem diversas situações que justificam tal afirmação. Além disso, os mapas também são instrumentos de contestação e aparecem como contraponto às distintas estratégias hegemônicas de poder. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo discutir o caráter político desta relação e fortalecer a produção de mapas que possam ser um contraponto ao status quo. Foi realizada revisão bibliográfica para fundamentar a crítica em torno dos mapas e referendar a organização e análise do momento empírico da pesquisa que consistiu em uma experiência formativa em cartografia crítica e mapeamento participativo, realizada junto a jovens estudantes de escola pública da periferia de São Paulo. Como resultado, 09 oficinas foram desenvolvidas, sistematizadas e avaliadas, sendo passíveis de replicação em outros espaços. Fomentar novos atores para a cena cartográfica é fazer oposição a discursos cartográficos dominantes e a escola é um espaço estratégico para tal promoção. / The emergence of practices engaged to use maps as instruments of contestation, such as the participatory mapping methodology, combined with theoretical effervescence on criticizing maps, especially from Brian Harley, is critical cartography. Participatory maps come up as a proposal to strengthen the defense of traditional communities, in the context of territorial conflict. Thus, a multitude of experiences and techniques is developed with the purpose of counter hegemonic cartographic representations. Meanwhile, in the theoretical scenario, maps have its character of neutral scientific document questioned and situated in the midst of power relations. Historically, maps were and still are used in strategies of domination and there are several situations that justify such a claim. In addition, the maps are also contesting instruments and appear as a counterpoint to the different hegemonic strategies of power. This research aimed to discuss the political nature of this relationship, and to strengthen the production of maps that can be a counterpoint to the status quo. The scientific literature was reviewed to support the criticism around maps and to endorse the empirical research organization and analysis which consisted of a formative experience in critical and participatory mapping, carried out with young public school students from the outskirts of São Paulo. As a result, nine workshops were developed, systematized and evaluated, being capable of replication in other areas. To promote new players into the mapping scene is to confront and make opposition to the dominant cartographic discourse and the school is a strategic space for such actions.

A emergência de práticas engajadas a utilizar os mapas como instrumento de contestação, como é o caso da metodologia de mapeamento participativo, aliada a efervescência teórica em torno de fazer a crítica aos mapas, sobretudo a partir de Brian Harley, constitui a cartografia crítica. Os mapas participativos surgem como proposta para fortalecer a defesa de comunidades tradicionais em contexto de conflito territorial. Assim, uma infinidade de experiências e técnicas é desenvolvida com a proposta de contrapor representações cartográficas hegemônicas. Enquanto isso, no plano teórico, os mapas tem o caráter de documento científico neutro questionado e são situados em meio a relações de poder. Historicamente, os mapas foram e ainda são utilizados em estratégias de dominação e existem diversas situações que justificam tal afirmação. Além disso, os mapas também são instrumentos de contestação e aparecem como contraponto às distintas estratégias hegemônicas de poder. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo discutir o caráter político desta relação e fortalecer a produção de mapas que possam ser um contraponto ao status quo. Foi realizada revisão bibliográfica para fundamentar a crítica em torno dos mapas e referendar a organização e análise do momento empírico da pesquisa que consistiu em uma experiência formativa em cartografia crítica e mapeamento participativo, realizada junto a jovens estudantes de escola pública da periferia de São Paulo. Como resultado, 09 oficinas foram desenvolvidas, sistematizadas e avaliadas, sendo passíveis de replicação em outros espaços. Fomentar novos atores para a cena cartográfica é fazer oposição a discursos cartográficos dominantes e a escola é um espaço estratégico para tal promoção. / The emergence of practices engaged to use maps as instruments of contestation, such as the participatory mapping methodology, combined with theoretical effervescence on criticizing maps, especially from Brian Harley, is critical cartography. Participatory maps come up as a proposal to strengthen the defense of traditional communities, in the context of territorial conflict. Thus, a multitude of experiences and techniques is developed with the purpose of counter hegemonic cartographic representations. Meanwhile, in the theoretical scenario, maps have its character of neutral scientific document questioned and situated in the midst of power relations. Historically, maps were and still are used in strategies of domination and there are several situations that justify such a claim. In addition, the maps are also contesting instruments and appear as a counterpoint to the different hegemonic strategies of power. This research aimed to discuss the political nature of this relationship, and to strengthen the production of maps that can be a counterpoint to the status quo. The scientific literature was reviewed to support the criticism around maps and to endorse the empirical research organization and analysis which consisted of a formative experience in critical and participatory mapping, carried out with young public school students from the outskirts of São Paulo. As a result, nine workshops were developed, systematized and evaluated, being capable of replication in other areas. To promote new players into the mapping scene is to confront and make opposition to the dominant cartographic discourse and the school is a strategic space for such actions.

The Pahrump Band of Southern Paiute is an Indigenous group in southern Nevada that is not formally acknowledged by the United States government. This status was in part created by the production of space within the colonial system, through both cartographic and written texts. This thesis examines both the process of colonial space making around the Pahrump Band, and exposes the problems created by this process. Finally, a discussion is offered as to the value of re-presenting the spaces of the Pahrump Band in order to achieve political participation.

This thesis is concerned with mobile mapping practices in Sydney and Hong Kong. Since the development of mobile media technology, there has been widespread proliferation of geo-locative, quasi-cartographic mapping practices in which people use applications (apps) on their mobile phones to narrate and navigate their way through urban spaces. This has raised questions within scholarly communities about the impact that these new technologies are having on everyday practices and everyday lives. As such, this thesis seeks to contribute to a growing field of knowledge surrounding the transformation of wayfinding, navigational and spatial mapping in the wake of these developments. Focusing an empirical investigation in two post/colonial cities - Sydney and Hong Kong - it draws on ethnographic, archival and geographical data in order to situate mobile mapping in an everyday context. Building upon Foucault's work on order (2002b), knowledge (2002a) and discipline (1995), this thesis seeks to address the issue of power-knowledge relations within and without mobile mapping practices as political and generative contestations over the meaning of space, the potentiality of practice and the indeterminacy of the past. It does so by considering an over-arching discourse of cartographic reason, best articulated by Farinelli (1998) and Olsson (1998) as a rationalist, universalist and geometrical approach to spatial understanding. Moving beyond the Cartesian interpretation of cartographic reason, it argues that in an increasingly digitised and monadic world, analyses of cartographic discourse must expand into an investigation of the role of Leibnizian binary systems, universal characteristics and elasticity. As such, this thesis engages three heuristic lenses - space, technology and people - with which to understand the empirical material from different perspectives. It argues that digital mobile mapping practices can be understood as expanded and transformative descendants of the rationalist, universalist and scientific impulses that have characterised cartographic reason since the Enlightenment. However, where continuity can be traced across many different cartographic and mapping practices, as the power of cartographic reason continues to reassert authority and territorialise space and knowledge, equally, the contestations which where borne of initial and early colonial encounters continue to generate contestation, conflict and hauntings.

This Master thesis is about building-related public art as future cultural heritage and its management, preservation, and digital accessibility from a value perspective. Furthermore, the aim is to develop proposals for a management model and public tools that could benefit the accessibility of public art and thus also its preservation. A management model that provides an overview of management objects of public art and that can be shared with the public to create understanding, participation, and interaction. The thesis includes a critical report on the planning of a GIS project. GIS is a geographic information system, it provides tools for creating, editing, and analyzing data.The purpose of the critical report is to highlight that GIS can be used in an easily way but also requires a critically reflexive approach. The approach in the GIS project is critical, interdisciplinary and the mapping is based on cultural presence as a method. The result shows that geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a useful tool and can be easily use with the free ArcGIS software. There is some of the areas that GIS users need to handle as risk analysis, legislation, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. It is important that the material created with GIS is shared with the public to create understanding, participation, and interaction. Thus, it is relevant to contextualize the content from a historical perspective and in relation to the present and the target group. Therefore, is important to keep in mind that norms and values change over time and that making the material available can mean reaching a global audience, an intercultural approach could be beneficial.

Esta tese é uma investigação sobre um conjunto de mapas e diagramas produzidos por artistas e ativistas entre as décadas de 1960 e 2010, a partir de diferentes contextos de transformação social, política e econômica em momentos de crise, de conflito e de formas potenciais de resistência. Através de documentos como catálogos, manifestos, artigos, fotografias, documentários, obras de arte, reproduções de mapas e entrevistas, a pesquisa realiza uma análise sobre esse conjunto de mapeamentos desenvolvidos por três gerações de artistas. No primeiro capítulo, este trabalho examina os jogos e mapas realizados nos anos 1960 e 1970 pelo sueco-brasileiro Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976) durante as tensões geopolíticas da Guerra Fria (1947-1991) e as mudanças estruturais e organizacionais do capitalismo global na década de 1970. No segundo capítulo, a tese discute a obra do norte-americano Mark Lombardi (1951- 2000), artista que, durante a década de 1990, procurou mapear com suas estruturas narrativas redes internacionais de poder e transações financeiras obscuras envolvendo bancos, governos e elites dominantes da sociedade neoliberal. O terceiro capítulo trata das práticas de contracartografia conduzidas entre os anos 1990 e 2010 pelos coletivos de arte ativista Bureau dÉtudes (França), Counter-Cartographies Collective (Estados Unidos) e Iconoclasistas (Argentina). Com base nas articulações entre arte contemporânea, ativismo político e cartografia crítica, a tese considera que os mapeamentos realizados por esses artistas-ativistas trazem experiências importantes de produção de conhecimento e contribuem para a visualização das relações de poder no mundo contemporâneo, opondo-se também aos mapas supostamente imparciais, objetivos e naturalizantes do mundo guiados por interesses corporativos, militares e governamentais. / This thesis is an investigation on a series of maps and diagrams produced by artists and activists between the 1960s and the 2010s, in different social, political and economical contexts of change and crisis, conflict and potential forms of resistance. Through the analysis of documents, catalogs, manifestos, articles, photographs, documentaries, art works, reproductions of maps and interviews, the research approaches mappings developed by three generations of artists. The first chapter examines the games and maps created in the 1960s and 70s by the Swedish- Brazilian artist Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976), during the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War (1947-1991) and the structural and organizational changes in global capitalism in the 1970s. The second chapter discusses the works of the American artist Mark Lombardi (1951-2000), who, during the 1990s, has tried to map international power networks and obscure financial transactions involving banks, governments, and neoliberal elites, using narrative structures. The third chapter addresses counter-cartography practices developed between the 1990s and 2010s by activist art collectives Bureau dÉtudes (France), Counter-Cartographies Collective (United States) and Iconoclasistas (Argentina). Based on the interrelations between contemporary art, political activism and critical cartography, the thesis considers that the mappings produced by this activists-artists are important experiences of producing knowledge and visualizing power relations in the contemporary world, creating an opposition to supposedly neutral and objective maps created according to corporate, governmental and military interests.