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New course: Urban Mapping

Starting on 07.03.2024, I’ll be teaching a new undergraduate course, Urban Mapping, at the Faculty of Social Work, Hochschule Emden-Leer. Every Thursday morning, we’ll use the city as both our classroom and our case study, asking how social life and urban space continuously shape one another. Through short lectures, hands-on workshops, and collective discussions, the course invites students to think with maps as tools for analyzing and representing contemporary urban realities.  

Urban Mapping is about more than learning to read maps—it’s about understanding how they participate in making the world. We will explore different mapping practices (from paper maps to digital platforms and mobile mapping) and experiment with ways of visualizing complex social situations, from questions of housing and mobility to exclusion, care infrastructures, and the “right to the city.” By the end of the semester, students will be able to use their spatial thinking skills to study and visually represent social issues from a relational and collective perspective.  

A key intention of the course is to open a dialogue between geography, ethnography, and social work. Geography provides tools for understanding spatial patterns and territorial inequalities; ethnography draws attention to lived experience, everyday practices, and situated stories; social work grounds our discussions in questions of care, intervention, and social justice. In Urban Mapping, we’ll bring these perspectives together: maps will not be neutral backgrounds but devices for surfacing voices, conflicts, and possibilities in the city.

Methodologically, the course is designed as an experimental workshop. Alongside our classroom meetings, we will undertake several small field trips in Emden, working in groups to walk, observe, and collect social and spatial data. We will test counter-mapping exercises, build simple “social mapping toolkits,” and design our own cartographic devices to explore topics that matter for social planning and community work in and around the city. The semester will culminate in a final cartographic exercise, developed collaboratively in class, in which each group presents and discusses their mapping project with the rest of the course.  

Finally, this course is strongly influenced by William Bunge’s urban explorations, especially his work with the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute and his radical mapping of neighbourhoods such as Fitzgerald. Bunge treated the city not as an abstract space but as a dense, unequal, and often violent field of everyday life, insisting that maps should document the conditions of those most affected by poverty, racism, and neglect. In Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution and related projects, he combined careful spatial analysis with door-to-door encounters, children’s drawings, and community-based data to produce atlases that were at once scientific and political. Urban Mapping takes up this spirit: we will treat mapping as an engaged, collaborative practice, using the city as our laboratory while asking how our maps might support critical reflection, social work, and struggles for more just urban futures.

I’m very much looking forward to working with students at Hochschule Emden-Leer to experiment with inventive ways of exploring the city—walking, drawing, annotating, and re-mapping Emden as a shared urban laboratory.

Course structure

After getting to know each other, we will explore the course’s content, structure, and activities. Its methodology, assignment, and basic rules will be explained.

Theme: Why map the city at all? Space, place, and why social work might care.

  1. Bunge, William. 1971. Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing. (2011 reissued edition with a new foreword by Nik Heynen and Trevor J. Barnes, University of Georgia Press.) Preface and Foreword.
  2. Massey, Doreen. 1991. “A Global Sense of Place.” Marxism Today 38: 24–29.  
  3. Hillier, Amy. 2007. “Why Social Work Needs Mapping.” Journal of Social Work Education 43 (2): 205–222.  
  4. Kindon, Sara, Rachel Pain, and Mike Kesby. 2007. “Introduction: Connecting People, Participation and Place.” In Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place. London: Routledge.  
  5. Wood, Denis. 2010. “Introduction: Maps Work.” In Rethinking the Power of Maps. New York: Guilford.

A brief introduction to cartography / Practical exercise: drawing our first maps.Materials will be provided.

Theme: Critical cartography, maps as power/knowledge.

  1. Harley, J. B. 1989. “Deconstructing the Map.” Cartographica 26 (2): 1–15.  
  2. Harley, J. B. 2001. “Maps, Knowledge and Power.” In The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.  
  3. Wood, Denis. 2010. “Unleashing the Power of the Map.” In Rethinking the Power of Maps.
  4. Kitchin, Rob, and Martin Dodge. 2007. “Rethinking Maps.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (3): 331–344.
  5. Crampton, Jeremy W. 2010. Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. (Ch. 1–2.)

Exploring different types of maps / Practical exercise: We will create a personal map of an urban place from our childhood. Materials will be provided.

Theme: Everyday mapping, mental maps, personal geographies.

  1. Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Ch. 1 “The Image of the Environment.”)  
  2. Beketova, S. I., et al. 2016. “Mental Maps as a Learning Tool in Geography.” International Journal of Environmental and Science Education 11 (8): 1819–1835.  
  3. Papaioannou, Olympia. 2020. “Mental Maps and Representations of the City Centre of Thessaloniki.” European Journal of Geography 11 (3): 31–48.  
  4. Geographical Association. “Teaching with Maps – Mental Maps.” Online teaching resource.  
  5. Triponescu, Alexandra. 2024. “Mapping Perception: Analyzing Mental Representations of the City.” Urban Science8 (4): 205.  

Unpacking the city as a social construction / Interactive discussion: City shapes around the world. A virtual journey of how cities are socially constructed around the world.

Theme: The city as a social construction / ordinary cities / global South perspectives.

  1. Robinson, Jennifer. 2002. “Global and World Cities: A View from off the Map.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26 (3): 531–554.  
  2. Robinson, Jennifer. 2006. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London: Routledge. (Introduction.)  
  3. Roy, Ananya. 2011. “Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35 (2): 223–238.  
  4. Harvey, David. 2008. “The Right to the City.” New Left Review 53: 23–40.  
  5. UN-Habitat. 2020. World Cities Report 2020: The Value of Sustainable Urbanization. (Overview chapter on what “urban” means in policy debates.)  

Interactive presentation: Slum tourism in Medellín and its social implications. Case study: Comuna 13.

Theme: Slum tourism, counter-mapping, Medellín, inequality.

  1. Hernández-García, Jaime. 2013. “Slum Tourism and City Branding in Medellín, Colombia.” In Fabian Frenzel et al., eds. Slum Tourism: Poverty, Power and Ethics. London: Routledge. (Often available as a chapter or online excerpt.)  
  2. Frenzel, Fabian, Ko Koens, and Malte Steinbrink, eds. 2012. Slum Tourism: Poverty, Power and Ethics. London: Routledge. (Introduction.)
  3. Dovey, Kim, and Ross King. 2012. “Informal Urbanism and the Taste for Slums.” Tourist Studies 12 (3): 232–254.  
  4. Peluso, Nancy Lee. 1995. “Whose Woods Are These? Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Antipode 27 (4): 383–406.  
  5. Wood, Denis. 2010. “Counter-Mapping and the Death of Cartography.” In Rethinking the Power of Maps.

A (semi) guided tour around the downtown. We will form teams to explore the city and collect data together.

Theme: Walking methods, mobile ethnography, sensing the city.

  1. de Certeau, Michel. 1984. “Walking in the City.” In The Practice of Everyday Life, 91–110. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  2. Ingold, Tim, and Jo Lee Vergunst, eds. 2008. Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot. Aldershot: Ashgate. (Intro chapter.)
  3. Pink, Sarah. 2007. “Walking with Video.” Visual Studies 22 (3): 240–252.  
  4. Hall, Tom. 2009. “Footwork: Moving and Knowing in Local Space(s).” Qualitative Research 9 (5): 571–585.  
  5. Kusenbach, Margarethe. 2003. “Street Phenomenology: The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool.” Ethnography 4 (3): 455–485.  

An interactive presentation and discussion of our findings during our tour around Emden / Group discussion on what topic developing the final assignment.

Theme: From field notes and sketches to mapped stories and social analysis.

  1. Clarke, Adele E. 2003. “Situational Analyses: Grounded Theory Mapping After the Postmodern Turn.” Symbolic Interaction 26 (4): 553–576.  
  2. Cope, Meghan, and Sarah Elwood, eds. 2009. Qualitative GIS: A Mixed Methods Approach. London: Sage. (Intro + a case-study chapter.)  
  3. Crampton, Jeremy W. 2009. “Cartography: Maps 2.0.” Progress in Human Geography 33 (1): 91–100.  
  4. Caquard, Sébastien. 2014. “Narrative Cartography: From Mapping Stories to the Narrative of Maps and Mapping.” The Cartographic Journal 51 (2): 101–106.  
  5. Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Selected chapter on experience and meaning.)

Presentation of online and analogical devices to collect, track, and represent cartographic data / Construction of field devices. Materials will be provided.

Theme: Participatory / social cartography, community mapping, social work tools.

  1. Dreessen, Katrien, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Thomas Laureyssens, Selina Schepers, and Sabina Baciu. 2011. MAP-it: A Participatory Mapping Toolkit. Leuven: Acco.  
  2. International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 2009. Good Practices in Participatory Mapping. Rome: IFAD.  
  3. UN-Habitat. 2014. Community Mapping Guide: A Youth Community Mapping Toolkit for East Africa (Vol. 3).Nairobi: UN-Habitat.  
  4. Muñoz, José Andrés Gómez. 2019. “La Cartografía Social (Mapeo Colectivo) en un Mundo Globalizado.” Revista CITECSA 10 (1): 57–72.  
  5. Iconoclasistas / Geoactivismo. 2013. Manual de mapeo colectivo: Recursos cartográficos críticos para procesos territoriales de creación colaborativa. Buenos Aires: Iconoclasistas. 

Fieldwork by groups around Emden.

Theme: Deepening fieldwork; sketching, photographing, tracing routes.

  1. Pink, Sarah. 2013. Doing Visual Ethnography, 3rd ed. London: Sage. (Ch. on walking, video, and place.)  
  2. Carpiano, Richard M. 2009. “Come Take a Walk with Me: The Go-Along Interview as a Novel Method for Studying the Implications of Place for Health and Well-Being.” Health & Place 15 (1): 263–272.  
  3. Kusenbach, Margarethe. 2003. “Street Phenomenology…” (if not already read in full, you can bring it back here as the core method piece.)  
  4. Evans, James, and Phil Jones. 2011. “The Walking Interview: Methodology, Mobility and Place.” Applied Geography 31 (2): 849–858.  
  5. Ingold, Tim. 2011. “Anthropology is Not Ethnography.” In Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge. (Focus on movement + description.)

Fieldwork by groups around Emden.

Theme: From raw material to “versions” of the city: story-maps, multi-scalar views.

  1. Caquard, Sébastien. 2013. “Cartography I: Mapping Narrative Cartography.” Progress in Human Geography 37 (1): 135–144.  
  2. Caquard, Sébastien, and Stefanie Dimitrovas. 2017. “Story Maps & Co. The State of the Art of Online Narrative Cartography.” Mappemonde 121.  
  3. Dodge, Martin, Rob Kitchin, and Chris Perkins. 2011. “Introductory Essay: Theories, Practices and Politics of Mapping.” In The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.  
  4. Crampton, Jeremy W. 2004. The Political Mapping of Cyberspace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Introduction; on digital mapping and power.)  
  5. Goodchild, Michael F. 2007. “Citizens as Sensors: The World of Volunteered Geography.” GeoJournal 69 (4): 211–221. (For thinking about users as mappers.) 

Groups will design and produce their final assignment.(Some) materials will be provided.

Theme: Designing maps as communicative/advocacy tools.

  1. Wood, Denis, and John Fels. 2008. The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Intro + one case.)  
  2. Dennis, Sarah F., Torleif M. Gaulocher, Rhonda M. Carpiano, and Nancy B. Brown. 2009. “Participatory Photo Mapping (PPM): Exploring an Integrated Method for Health and Place Research with Young People.” Health & Place 15 (2): 466–473.
  3. Pearce, Margaret Wickens, and Renee Pualani Louis. 2008. “Mapping Indigenous Depth of Place.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 32 (3): 107–126.  
  4. Caquard, Sébastien, and William Cartwright. 2014. “Narrative Cartography: From Mapping Stories to the Narrative of Maps and Mapping.” (If not used in Session 7; otherwise you can re-use as background here.)  
  5. Ekers, Michael, et al. 2012. “Gramsci Lives! Geographies of Radicalism and Counter-Mapping.” (Use a short excerpt if you want to connect to activism.)

Groups will design and produce their final assignment.(Some) materials will be provided.

Theme: Social work, ethics, audiences – who are these maps for?

  1. Hillier, Amy E. 2007. “Why Social Work Needs Mapping.” Journal of Social Work Education 43 (2): 205–221.
  2. Lightfoot, Elizabeth, Jennifer Simmelink McCleary, and Terry Lum. 2014. “Asset Mapping as a Research Tool for Community-Based Participatory Research in Social Work.” Social Work Research 38 (1): 59–64.

Final products will be checked and reviewed.

Theme: Reflecting on process, limits, and responsibilities of urban mapping.

  1. Kwan, Mei-Po. 2002. “Feminist Visualization: Re-Envisioning GIS as a Method in Feminist Geographic Research.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92 (4): 645–661.  
  2. Elwood, Sarah. 2006. “Negotiating Knowledge Production: The Everyday Inclusions, Exclusions, and Contradictions of Participatory GIS Research.” The Professional Geographer 58 (2): 197–208.

Products will be presented to the group and collectively discussed.

Theme: Wrapping up; mapping as ongoing practice in geography, ethnography, and social work.

  1. Massey, Doreen. 2005. For Space. London: Sage. (Conclusion – for a final reflection on space and responsibility.)
  2. Soja, Edward W. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell. (Ch. on “Thirdspace” as lived space.)
  3. Cresswell, Tim. 2013. Geographic Thought: A Critical Introduction. Ch. on “Place” or “Space.”

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