Critical Cartography

Most of us use maps on a day-to-day basis as practical tools
to help us find our way around. Not too long ago we would
have used Ordinance Survey maps, or pocket-sized city maps.
Increasingly people are drawn to using Google Maps on smartphones. We rarely reflect on the ways in which our use of these maps might actually structure our experience of the world and our relations within it, limiting our imagination and possibilities
for activity.
A critical cartography is the idea that maps – like other texts such as the written word, images or film - are not (and cannot be) value-free or neutral. Maps reflect and perpetuate relations of power, more often than not in the interests of dominant groups.