Pagmamapa sa Kapuluan: Map Story #2 -- the river runs

What are the performative potentials of maps and mapping? Can a more-than-human entity tell its stories? 

This is the second showcase of a map from the Pagmamapa sa Kapuluan project in line with the UP Department of Geography's observance of the 40th anniversary. This UP Diliman OICA-funded project aims to showcase a map or series of maps twice a month until March 2024 to show cartographic outputs of geography students, alumni, staff and faculty as a way to historicise various mappings and map-making practices of geographers. 

For details, email the Geonarratives Mapping team at geonarrativesph@gmail.com or visit the website: geonarratives.ph

This endeavor is also a joint undertaking of the GIST, GeM and HuG research clusters of the Department.

Pagmamapa sa Kapuluan: Map Stories #1 -- the spooky

Take a look at our first batch of maps in the Geonarratives Mapping website. 

https://geonarratives.ph/2023/11/06/map-stories-the-spooky/

Excerpt from the Geonarratives.PH site 

"So how do we depict the uncanny, the unseen, the not-quite-there? Based on cartographic data gathered from the Geography 1 classes of Fernand Francis Hermoso, haunted spaces come to life with stories that fascinate precisely because they live in the realm of  liminality. For academic year 2016-2017, Hermoso, an assistant professor at the UP Department of Geography challenged his students to capture the spooky and the haunted in UP campus. Data were gathered and obtained from written accounts in books, stories emanating from social media, and interviews of security guards and maintenance personnel who were stationed in these buildings. The triangulation of data was necessary to validate stories told from the ground and engender claims of spectral sightings in buildings.

The data were interpreted using kernel density mapping to create a hotspot or heat map, and which by extension also doubles as a spectral presence."

PGS Lecture Series 2021-10: Jonathan Villasper on mapping birds

In the book Arctic Dreams (1986), written by nature writer Barry Lopez, he observed: “Birds tug at the mind and heart with a strange intensity.” This intense emotional pull of the avian species has, through the years, captivated poets and ornithologists, birdwatchers and cartographers. In ethno-ornithology literature, stories are told and narrated by local inhabitants of bird sightings and what they mean to environment, climate, community, and folklore. A new wave of interest in birds and birdwatching, spurred by availability of robust data and access to map technologies led to a renewed vigor to locate their habitats, migratory patterns and behavior and how these relate to the constantly changing environmental and geocultural landscapes.

 

For the 10^th Philippine Geographical Society Lecture Series (PGS LS) for 2021, geographer and longtime birder Jonathan Villasper will talk and share various mapping geovisualizations of birds in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. The lecture – Mapping Bird Ecology and Conservation – uses cartographic visualizations that tell various bird stories. With a special focus on bird conservation efforts and initiatives, Jon Villasper’s lecture also touches on the identification and delineation of protected areas. Key to mapping efficacy is robust data.

Jon Villasper is a birdwatcher, founder and permanent Executive Committee member of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines. He is also a geographer and a former instructor of Digital Cartography at the UP Dept of Geography where he taught GIS and cartography for several years in both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has used his skills and knowledge on geography, data, and cartography in a variety of fields including urban planning, transportation, reproductive health, conflict and development, education, history, and for the longest time, in biodiversity conservation where he had the opportunity to work on, among other things, the book Threatened Birds of the Philippines - an exhaustive resource listing and discussing Philippine birds that are in danger of disappearing from the country, their distribution, ecology, and threats. He also served as member, president and adviser of the UP Haring Ibon. 

 

The lecture happens on 7 August (Saturday) at 2:00PM. To register, please click this link https://bit.ly/2TOWe2y

 

The lecture is co-sponsored by the UP Department of Geography, Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, The UP Wild, and UP Haring Ibon. 

PGS Lecture Series 2021-02: Mikko Tamura on participatory mapping for safe LGBT spaces

For the second PGS Lecture Series for 2021, Mikko Tamura will present data, discourses, and practices of mapping that go beyond representation. Entitled Participatory Mapping of LGBT Experiences and Safe Spaces, the talk draws from Tamura's own project engagements through MapBeks -- an "online community of volunteers advocating for LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex +) representation and inclusion in various mapping platforms". The talk also discusses the queering of mapping and mapmaking practices in the Philippines.

Aside from being the lead advocate for MapBeks, Tamura is currently the Community Manager for the Asia and the Pacific Hub at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. He is the founder of MapBeks and is a volunteer mapper and a voting member of OpenStreetMap and HOT.

He was previously involved in various disaster mapping response during the Super Typhoon Yolanda and the Marawi Siege. 

Tamura's talk will take place remotely via Zoom on 20 February 2021 at 7:00PM. Click this link to register.

This PGS Lecture Series is sponsored by the Philippine Geographical Society, and co-sponsored by the UP Department of Geography.