GEOGRAFIA, SEMIOLOGIA GRÁFICA E COREMÁTICA

Oseias Da Silva Martinuci

doi:10.4215/rm2016.1503.0003

Abstract

Cartography has always played an important role in the work of geographers. In the twenty-first century it is still used extensively in the research process but only as a mere technique. The implications, possibilities and limitations that Cartography places on our thinking are often ignored. To address this problem, this article seeks to establish links between a theory that explains the working of geographic space in the current period and the principal and most relevant cartographic approaches at our disposal. In other words, it is an analysis of the possibilities of dialogue between Milton Santos' theory of Geographic Space, the Graphic Semiology of Jacques Bertin and the Chorem theory of Roger Brunet. On the basis of these, some misunderstandings in the geographical environment about geographical-representation spatial relations are dispelled and other interpretations are proposed. Basically, the debate appears to be fundamentally theoretical and requires a new epistemological stance. Recovering Cartography's place in theoretical Geography is one of the major tasks facing contemporary geographical science.

Highlights

One of the main issues facing the epistemological debate in Geography in the beginning of the twenty-first century is precisely whether the Cartography currently practiced by geographers is appropriate to represent the spatial problems of the present
A relevant example of this effort can be found in the article by Kitchin and Dodge (2007), who discuss the philosophical foundations of Cartography, questioning its ontological character and defending that it should be a reconsidered as naturally orthogenetic
They claim that the map is always an open, transient construction, which is brought into existence through practice. This is an important attempt to discuss the epistemological foundations of Cartography

Summary

INTRODUCTION

One of the main issues facing the epistemological debate in Geography in the beginning of the twenty-first century is precisely whether the Cartography currently practiced by geographers is appropriate to represent the spatial problems of the present. Moreira reiterates the fundamental need to place Cartography in Geography’s epistemological debate for its necessary update Such an attitude is crucial at a time when Geography seeks to understand the complexity of geographical space, increasingly characterized by inter-scale dynamics, by flows of all kinds and by multidimensional relations. We cannot forget that the cartographers who initiated the debate about the map’s role as a means of communication were fundamental to the advances that were observed in the following decades They stressed that Cartography is an activity of two spheres of inseparable interests: doing and using maps (KOLACNY, 1994; KOEMAN, 1995). The semantic investment, that is, assigning an explanation, a signification and a meaning to this (graphic) material form is up to geographers

CARTOGRAPHY AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE THEORETICAL APPROACH OF GEOGRAPHY

MILTON SANTOS AND HIS PROPOSED METHOD

THE CARTOGRAPHIC TREATMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE