Carol Russell passed this on to me from the Maps, Air Photo & GIS Form:
Call for papers - 2010 RGS-IBG Annual International Conference,
1-3rd September 2010, London, UK
Mapping Underground
Representing Subterranean Spaces, Practices and Cultures
Session organisers:
Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins
Geography, School of Environment & Development, University of Manchester
Context:
What lies beneath the ground is hidden and usually unrepresented but is
vital for many spaces and practices occurring above. In these concealed
and largely impenetrable subterranean spaces lurk unknown dangers and the
possibilities for adventurous exploration; moreover they serve as
potentially profitable resources, as engineering challenges to overcome,
as risks to be mapped and managed, as a spring of spiritual well-being or
the site of death and burial, as the source of artefacts of the human past
to be recovered and conserved, and as a scientific record of geologic
histories. The diversity of subterranean spaces, practices and cultures
have attracted scholarly attention including concern for symbolic and
multi-layered mythologies of representation (Rosalind Williams, David
Pike), the strangely sublime nature of underground infrastructures like
drains and ducts (Paul Dobraszczyk, Geoff Manaugh), the psychic anxieties
of the unmappable underground (Steve Pile), the political economy and
social ecology of subterranean facilities and flow (Matthew Gandy, Maria
Kaika). Beyond the academy there is also burgeoning 'amateur' interest in
charting the subterranean extent of cities (with substantial books
documenting the arcane underground features of, for example, Liverpool,
London, Manchester and Manhattan), along with obsessive collecting
behaviour of enthusiasts mapping out all the tunnels and 'lost' stations,
and recording war-time bunkers, emergency shelters and other forgotten
subterranean heritage.
On most topographic maps the representation of space stops at
the ground
level but there are many specialised geographic visualizations of the
underground. Examples include colourful and cryptically labelled
geological maps, complex engineering plans of tunnels and sewers,
volumetric models, and profiles of strata employed in oil exploration and
mineral extraction, geo-physical subsurface displays produced with
reflected mapping of radar and sound waves penetrating the solid ground
surface. We seek theoretically informed papers that consider how and why
the underground has been mapped (and not mapped), relating characteristics
of subterranean spaces to different forms of representational practice and
visual culture.
Proposed papers with a title and short abstract (250 words maximum) should
be submitted to Martin Dodge (m.do...@manchester.ac.uk) by 31 January
2010. Further details on conference are at www.rgs.org/AC2010
This announcement was somewhat abbreviated for Texascavers. These
people have a strange idea of the underground. Cavers need to show
them them how to map the real underground.
Bill Russell
--
William Hart Russell
4806 Red River Street
Austin, TX 78751
H: 512-453-4774 (messages)
CELL: 512-940-8336
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