Gustafson, JS;
(2015)
Maps and contradictions: Urban political ecology and cartographic expertise in southern Appalachia.
Geoforum
, 60
pp. 143-152.
10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.017.
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Abstract
Commissioned by the State legislature after a succession of deadly and damaging landslides and decades of exurban growth on steep mountain slopes, the North Carolina Geological Survey produced a series of landslide hazard maps detailing for the public landslide prone areas of Macon County, North Carolina, USA. While widely supported at the state and local levels in 2005, by 2011, the mapping program was defunded in the state’s budget and the maps were highly politically criticized in Macon County. Even today, the maps remain unused in any legal capacity and are unknown to many residents of the region. Empirically, this article narrates the political fate of the maps in Macon County from 2005–2011 and theoretically, it draws upon a synthesis of urban political ecology (UPE), science and technology studies (STS), and critical cartography to interpret the rapid downfall of the landslide hazard maps. I show that a particular intervention of scientific expertise in exurban contradictions not only produced the maps, but also provided the political conditions for their ultimate discard. Finally, the article concludes by offering a contribution to the growing exurban studies literature as well as the ‘second wave’ of UPE.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Maps and contradictions: Urban political ecology and cartographic expertise in southern Appalachia |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.017 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.017 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2017. This manuscript version is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Further details about CC BY licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Access may be initially restricted by the publisher. |
| Keywords: | Urban political ecology; science and technology studies; critical cartography; exurban studies; southern appalachia; landslides |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1540012 |
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