Druckfrisch Book Discussion with Henk van Houtum

"Free the Map" – From Atlas to Hermes: A New Cartography of Borders and Migration

Date/Time: to
Type: Panel discussion / Round-table talk
Location: Strohsackpassage, Room 5.55, Nikolaistraße 6-10, Leipzig
Event series: Druckfrisch Book Discussion

In our „Druckfrisch Book Discussion" series, researchers discuss newly published works from the humanities and social sciences of globalisation research. This episode focuses on „Free the Map. From Atlas to Hermes: A New Cartography of Borders and Migration“ by the Henk van Houtum.

Photo: ReCentGlobe

Free the Map: From Atlas to Hermes: A New Cartography of Borders and Migration

 

A map is a visual story of the world. It feeds our imagination and shapes our view of the world. A standard atlas, however, predominantly tells only one story, that of the nation-state. It depicts a world in which people are uniformly packed into national containers, enclosed by borders, and in which migration is often represented as threatening invasion arrows. 

Free the Map goes beyond this narrow, state-centric cartography. The book argues for a new cartographic story: a Hermes – the grandson of Atlas and the god of mobility and human connections. To this end, it discusses several visually compelling, alternative cartographic representations of borders and migration. 

Free the Map ends with a call to action. Various artists and cartographers offer exciting ready-to-use Hermes challenges for education and public Maplabs.

 

About the author

Prof. Dr. Henk van Houtum is professor Political Geography and Geopolitics and co-founder and coordinator of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, Radboud University Nijmegen. Henk van Houtum is an expert on European border policy, cross-border cooperation, migration, conflicts, national identity politics, the politics of sports and the cartography of borders and migration.

 

You can also join the Book Discussion online 

via Zoom.