Paper short abstract:

By investigating the embodied construction of belonging that takes place through map outlines, I evaluate how Cornish residents and visitors frame their discursive, visual and sensorial experiences of place. This occurs through a diversity of spatial, social and cross-cultural mapping practices.

Paper long abstract:

With reference to the relationship that exists between maps and identity in Britain's Cornish peninsula, this paper explores the dialectics between discourse and practice. It claims that cartographic portraits condition, and are conditioned by, experiential journeys as well as social images which both project and reflect cultural identities. Such spatial projections embed notions of home and belonging into the fabric of individual and collective perceptions of the region. The paper therefore highlights some of the more affective ways of gauging the interactions that people have with the visual imagery and iconography of maps. By revealing how its distinctive contour typically stands as a symbolic form of local representation, it suggests that the very shape of Cornwall emphasises cultural distinction. Moreover, by investigating the embodied construction of belonging that takes place through map outlines, I am ultimately interested in evaluating how residents and visitors frame their discursive, visual and sensorial experiences of place. This, I argue, occurs through a diversity of mapping practices which are interesting in spatial, social and cross-cultural terms.

E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed

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