Making maps, making claims: the politics and practices of visualisation in environmental governance

Abstract

What role does visualisation—such as images and maps—play in environmental and landscape governance? As pointed out by our late colleague Eirin Hongslo, surprisingly little research has been conducted on what ‘work’ images and maps do in these fields. This special issue draws on her insights, and the wider scholarship on critical cartography and political ecology, to explore how images and maps act as technologies of governance through creating and rationalising space. Through empirical studies ranging from forest governance in the Congo, petroleum exploration in the Arctic, regional planning for coastal zones and mountain areas in Norway, and pastoralist rangelands in southern Africa, the contributors to this special issue bring to light the various ways in which maps and images are visual manifestations of particular assumptions about socio-ecological causal relations, shaping notions and practices of authority and access. We conclude through emphasising the potential for further inquiry.