Mapping/Countermapping the Narrative: How Maps and Stories Preserve the Future

In the face of ongoing climate change, space is a pivotal factor in who survives and thrives and who is abandoned. Critical cartographies and historical mapping offer opportunities for conversations centering marginalized voices. Historical cartographies act as witness to injustice through omission. By asking who is not represented in a map, we may examine dominant power structures. Modern critical cartographies approach social justice by creating space for voices previously silenced, and many unreal cartographies share this approach. By applying cartographic literacy skills with an emphasis on climate justice to maps associated with climate fiction media, we create the opportunity for a more equitable approach to climate change. Through the examination of three climate fiction cartographies, we can examine critiques of capitalism, a tale of history repeating itself, and climate change analyzed through the lens of race. By expanding collecting areas to include maps concerned with climate fiction, libraries and archives are better able to document environmental justice efforts and provide access to information about those efforts to the public.

Mapping/Countermapping the Narrative: How Maps and Stories Preserve the Future Institutional Repository Document