Mapping as assemblage for cultural research

This article introduces a novel approach to the practice of mapping for the Cultural Researcher. Mapping is typically defined as a spatial concept where definitions of territory are represented. Recent interest in mapping and the affordances of Global Positioning Software (GPS) technologies offer new directions for exploring connections and flows across economic, social and cultural spheres. These new developments offer exciting ways to re-engage with spatial definitions and representations; however they can also be seen to maintain existing power relations that are inherent within previous modes. This article explores how the practice of mapping offers some methodological and conceptual revisions to what may constitute Cultural Research; that is, to situate the Researcher in a space of subject/object relations, rendered as fields or domains of data. Central to this, is to understand that the Research perspective is embedded within its 'object'; not sitting on the outside, looking down or around, but an integral agent within the data mapping process and whose role might be to record, emphasise, direct and facilitate selected connections and flows between networks.