Sebastien Caquard | Concordia University (Canada) (original) (raw)
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Papers by Sebastien Caquard
Canadian Geographer, May 18, 2011
Progress in Human Geography, Mar 31, 2014
In this third report, I focus on cognitive cartography in order to examine how the historical div... more In this third report, I focus on cognitive cartography in order to examine how the historical division between empiricist and critical approaches in cartography has shifted recently. I do so by building on Kitchin and Dodge’s argument (2007) that parts of the apparent disjuncture within cartography might be resolved through a greater focus on emergent approaches to mapping as a process, which is the core idea of post-representational cartography. By looking at cognitive cartography from a post-representational perspective I emphasize two major trends. On the one hand, the processual positioning of post-representational cartography simply shifts the historical line of divide, since it inherently disqualifies any cognitive studies that artificially dissociate the map from its context of use and production. On the other hand, by enabling the combination of critical positioning with empiricist practices, post-representational cartography offers opportunities to revisit in practical terms the tensions between these two approaches. It provides an original framework to envision our mental, emotional and embodied relationships with maps and with places through maps, and has the potential to bring cartography into a new arena in which the empiricist/critical divide could be transcended.
Journal of Cultural Geography, Mar 20, 2023
This paper proposes the concept of mapping-ofrenda, which envisions mapping as a form of mourning... more This paper proposes the concept of mapping-ofrenda, which envisions mapping as a form of mourning and remembering while living in the context of migration. Inspired by the traditional Mexican ofrenda, the mapping-ofrenda aims to collect, curate, and represent posthumous memories. It can be produced collaboratively or individually, built with physical or digital maps, shared with other people, or kept private, and be dedicated to a single deceased or to an entire community. Through the process of co-designing two online ofrenda-maps with two Latina-American women living in Montreal (Canada) we identified some of the potential of mapping-ofrenda, including its capacity to stimulate our memories and remember stories on the verge of disappearing, to ground them to places, and to share them with people that might live far away. Mapping-ofrenda can also be a way of making visible the global geography of migration through highly intimate memories and acknowledging both the very personal and the highly universal need to remember and grieve. Finally, the main value of mapping-ofrenda in the context of migration, may be its capacity to reactivate and strengthen existing links and connections between people that are still alive but that may live far away.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 1, 2016
Ingénierie Des Systèmes D'information, May 28, 2017
Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, Jul 1, 2022
Cet article propose un dialogue entre la cartographie géolocalisée et la cartographie sensible, e... more Cet article propose un dialogue entre la cartographie géolocalisée et la cartographie sensible, entre les cartes euclidiennes et les cartes libérées de toutes coordonnées géographiques, entre les pratiques cartographiques conventionnelles et alternatives. Ce dialogue a été rendu nécessaire par les nombreux défis que présentent la mise en cartes de récits riches, complexes et parfois extrêmement chargés émotionnellement : les récits de vie d’exilés rwandais. En cartographiant deux de ces récits à l’aide d’un logiciel de cartographie géolocalisée – Atlascine – et d’une série de cartes sensibles, nous avons été amenés à réfléchir aux potentiels et limites de ces approches. Ces deux approches ont en commun de respecter l’intégrité des récits représentés, ainsi que de reconnaitre l’importance de rendre le processus cartographique le plus transparent possible. Néanmoins, leur utilisation en parallèle révèle leurs différences ainsi que leurs complémentarités. Les cartes géolocalisées ont tendance à traiter et performer les récits comme des bases de données géographiques. Elles sont adaptées pour représenter ce qui est explicite, ce qui est exprimé, géolocalisable, c’est-à-dire ce qui se situe à la surface textuelle de ces récits, au niveau de leur épiderme. En revanche, la cartographie sensible tend à aborder le texte comme une entrée dans ces récits, dans leurs profondeurs, dans leurs entrailles. Libérées de toute contrainte euclidienne, les cartes sensibles performent et révèlent les dimensions plus intimes et personnelles de ces histoires, sans se départir du point de vue des porteurs de récits pour qui certaines choses peuvent être difficiles à exprimer. Le dialogue entre ces deux approches cartographiques met en évidence leur complémentarité indispensable pour cartographier non seulement ce qui se dit dans les récits, mais aussi ce qui y est enfoui.
Artistic Approaches to Cultural Mapping, 2018
Cartographic Perspectives, 2019
Ingénierie des systèmes d'information, 2017
Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 2015
The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, 2019
GeoHumanities, 2021
Stories are now broadly recognized as important sources of geographic information in different do... more Stories are now broadly recognized as important sources of geographic information in different domains of the spatial humanities. The methodologies mobilized to identify these spatial data, however, remain the subject of intense debate. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by focusing on what we can learn from the close reading of stories to improve the quality of distant reading approaches. We do this through an in-depth comparative analysis of how toponyms are used across 10 oral life stories of exiles. Results show that a "distant listening" of the number of country names mentioned in these stories provides an accurate representation of their global geographies. However, the finer-scaled geographies of these stories become highly distorted when counting more local toponyms such as neighbourhoods, cities or regions. This study also reveals that results could be improved by accounting for the distribution and repetition of toponyms throughout these stories. Such insights and their nuances are described in this paper with an aim to help narrow the gap between close and distant reading methodologies.
The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien
Cartographic Perspectives
Since their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a var... more Since their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a variety of online cartographic projects. Their success has been accompanied by a range of critiques denouncing the individualistic market-based logic imposed by these mapping services. Alternative options to this dominant model have been released since then; uMap is one of them. uMap is a free, open-source online mapping platform that builds on OpenStreetMap to enable anyone to easily publish web maps individually or collaboratively. In this paper, we propose to reflect on the potential and limits of uMap based on our own experiences of deploying it in six different mapping projects. Through these experiences, uMap appears particularly well-suited for collaborative mapping projects, due to its ease in connecting to remote data and its high level of interoperability with a range of other applications. On the other hand, uMap seems less relevant for crowdmapping projects, due to its lack of b...
Canadian Geographer, May 18, 2011
Progress in Human Geography, Mar 31, 2014
In this third report, I focus on cognitive cartography in order to examine how the historical div... more In this third report, I focus on cognitive cartography in order to examine how the historical division between empiricist and critical approaches in cartography has shifted recently. I do so by building on Kitchin and Dodge’s argument (2007) that parts of the apparent disjuncture within cartography might be resolved through a greater focus on emergent approaches to mapping as a process, which is the core idea of post-representational cartography. By looking at cognitive cartography from a post-representational perspective I emphasize two major trends. On the one hand, the processual positioning of post-representational cartography simply shifts the historical line of divide, since it inherently disqualifies any cognitive studies that artificially dissociate the map from its context of use and production. On the other hand, by enabling the combination of critical positioning with empiricist practices, post-representational cartography offers opportunities to revisit in practical terms the tensions between these two approaches. It provides an original framework to envision our mental, emotional and embodied relationships with maps and with places through maps, and has the potential to bring cartography into a new arena in which the empiricist/critical divide could be transcended.
Journal of Cultural Geography, Mar 20, 2023
This paper proposes the concept of mapping-ofrenda, which envisions mapping as a form of mourning... more This paper proposes the concept of mapping-ofrenda, which envisions mapping as a form of mourning and remembering while living in the context of migration. Inspired by the traditional Mexican ofrenda, the mapping-ofrenda aims to collect, curate, and represent posthumous memories. It can be produced collaboratively or individually, built with physical or digital maps, shared with other people, or kept private, and be dedicated to a single deceased or to an entire community. Through the process of co-designing two online ofrenda-maps with two Latina-American women living in Montreal (Canada) we identified some of the potential of mapping-ofrenda, including its capacity to stimulate our memories and remember stories on the verge of disappearing, to ground them to places, and to share them with people that might live far away. Mapping-ofrenda can also be a way of making visible the global geography of migration through highly intimate memories and acknowledging both the very personal and the highly universal need to remember and grieve. Finally, the main value of mapping-ofrenda in the context of migration, may be its capacity to reactivate and strengthen existing links and connections between people that are still alive but that may live far away.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 1, 2016
Ingénierie Des Systèmes D'information, May 28, 2017
Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, Jul 1, 2022
Cet article propose un dialogue entre la cartographie géolocalisée et la cartographie sensible, e... more Cet article propose un dialogue entre la cartographie géolocalisée et la cartographie sensible, entre les cartes euclidiennes et les cartes libérées de toutes coordonnées géographiques, entre les pratiques cartographiques conventionnelles et alternatives. Ce dialogue a été rendu nécessaire par les nombreux défis que présentent la mise en cartes de récits riches, complexes et parfois extrêmement chargés émotionnellement : les récits de vie d’exilés rwandais. En cartographiant deux de ces récits à l’aide d’un logiciel de cartographie géolocalisée – Atlascine – et d’une série de cartes sensibles, nous avons été amenés à réfléchir aux potentiels et limites de ces approches. Ces deux approches ont en commun de respecter l’intégrité des récits représentés, ainsi que de reconnaitre l’importance de rendre le processus cartographique le plus transparent possible. Néanmoins, leur utilisation en parallèle révèle leurs différences ainsi que leurs complémentarités. Les cartes géolocalisées ont tendance à traiter et performer les récits comme des bases de données géographiques. Elles sont adaptées pour représenter ce qui est explicite, ce qui est exprimé, géolocalisable, c’est-à-dire ce qui se situe à la surface textuelle de ces récits, au niveau de leur épiderme. En revanche, la cartographie sensible tend à aborder le texte comme une entrée dans ces récits, dans leurs profondeurs, dans leurs entrailles. Libérées de toute contrainte euclidienne, les cartes sensibles performent et révèlent les dimensions plus intimes et personnelles de ces histoires, sans se départir du point de vue des porteurs de récits pour qui certaines choses peuvent être difficiles à exprimer. Le dialogue entre ces deux approches cartographiques met en évidence leur complémentarité indispensable pour cartographier non seulement ce qui se dit dans les récits, mais aussi ce qui y est enfoui.
Artistic Approaches to Cultural Mapping, 2018
Cartographic Perspectives, 2019
Ingénierie des systèmes d'information, 2017
Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 2015
The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, 2019
GeoHumanities, 2021
Stories are now broadly recognized as important sources of geographic information in different do... more Stories are now broadly recognized as important sources of geographic information in different domains of the spatial humanities. The methodologies mobilized to identify these spatial data, however, remain the subject of intense debate. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by focusing on what we can learn from the close reading of stories to improve the quality of distant reading approaches. We do this through an in-depth comparative analysis of how toponyms are used across 10 oral life stories of exiles. Results show that a "distant listening" of the number of country names mentioned in these stories provides an accurate representation of their global geographies. However, the finer-scaled geographies of these stories become highly distorted when counting more local toponyms such as neighbourhoods, cities or regions. This study also reveals that results could be improved by accounting for the distribution and repetition of toponyms throughout these stories. Such insights and their nuances are described in this paper with an aim to help narrow the gap between close and distant reading methodologies.
The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien
Cartographic Perspectives
Since their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a var... more Since their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a variety of online cartographic projects. Their success has been accompanied by a range of critiques denouncing the individualistic market-based logic imposed by these mapping services. Alternative options to this dominant model have been released since then; uMap is one of them. uMap is a free, open-source online mapping platform that builds on OpenStreetMap to enable anyone to easily publish web maps individually or collaboratively. In this paper, we propose to reflect on the potential and limits of uMap based on our own experiences of deploying it in six different mapping projects. Through these experiences, uMap appears particularly well-suited for collaborative mapping projects, due to its ease in connecting to remote data and its high level of interoperability with a range of other applications. On the other hand, uMap seems less relevant for crowdmapping projects, due to its lack of b...