![]() Later maps of the Arctic, such as John Hugh Johnson’s “ The Arctic regions, showing the North-West Passage as determined by Cap. In fact, even today, Canadian Geographic’s “10 most fascinating maps of the Arctic” were all developed by Western men.Įarly maps of the Arctic were developed by European men, such as Flemish Mercator’s full map of the Arctic in 1569. While the area has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for millennia, the most easily accessible maps of the Arctic are overwhelmingly made by men for men, and often non-Indigenous men. What are most often mapped are worlds devoid of women’s experiences produced from within professions that are dominated by men.Īrctic maps are unsurprisingly gendered as well. The traditional mapping subject, dominant until recently, is a scientist, cartographer, or GIS expert, a ‘disembodied’ and, likely, male researcher or professional, in pursuit of objective knowledge, the discovery of the truth, and its accurate graphic representation…Despite the quest for objectivity, the practices and products of this mapping subject have been infused with masculinist privilege (c.f. As is highlighted by Pavlovskaya and Martin (2007), As such, maps not only represent place or geographic feature names, but also cultural and religious representations, people, animals, objects, nature, and demographic data. Historical maps were etched into cave walls, or drawn on paper and animal skins, – “artifacts composed of signs that materialize a way of experiencing” (Geertz, 1976, as cited in Rundstrom, 1990). Mapping the ArcticĪs highlighted in this edition of the Arctic Yearbook, mapping informs how we perceive and understand the world, and indeed the Arctic. Inspired by Mapping Antarctic Women, an initiative that (re)maps the continent with female place names and tells the little-known stories of women’s contributions to the other pole, Mapping Women of the Arctic is a new, crowdsourced map-making initiative that seeks to celebrate and mark the unsung achievements of women in the Arctic. In this commentary, we explore the gendered dimension of map-making, honour the rare yet pivotal examples of female cartography, introduce Mapping Women of the Arctic – a way of re-imagining the Arctic through female placenames – and encourage readers to locate and highlight women’s contributions to the sciences, arts, policy, culture, diplomacy, history, exploration, and more. In these stories, the contributions of women, especially Indigenous women, rarely make it onto the map. However cartography, like history, often overwhelmingly documents the worlds, stories, and accomplishments of men. Maps can beautifully and, at times, wistfully tell us the story of us. Carol Devine, Tahnee Prior & Gosia Smieszek
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