‘(How) do we understand Capitalism? Reflections on critical methods’ was the title of a workshop on critical methods at the University of Manchester (September 13-14th). As the announcement of the workshop states, ‘there is no consensus on what critical social science is, exactly. Largely it is defined as not orthodox economics or positivist social science‘. Continue reading
2012 Paralympic and Olympic Medal maps
No more bread and circuses: London 2012 has turned into history while the Paralympic cauldron has been extinguished in a ‘Festival of Flame’. Just about time for a final roundup of the statistics of the games and the last maps that were still missing.
In the United Kingdom the spirit of the Olympics lived on in the Paralympics as created a similar media coverage (which has less been the case in many other countries). A lot of the public debate in Britain in the final debate of the Paralympics focussed on an increased relevance of the games – and that the results have started getting an equal importance as the Olympic medal counts. As already noticed at the Vancouver winter games, a comparison of the results showed some interesting differences in the achievements of the participating nations. This is shown in the following map animation of two cartograms showing each country’s share in the total medal counts (switching between the Paralympics and the Olympics 2012):
From geovisualisation to neocartography: Maps in a digital world
Changing technologies have always had a considerable impact on cartography and continue to do so. Several technological revolutions marked important steps in the practice and process of creating maps. Mechanical, optical and photo-chemical technologies changed the way maps were produced. Then, the discovery of electronic capabilities made a new dimension in map production accessible: Not only most of the design techniques were transferred to digital platforms, used at some step in the production of almost all maps created today, but also the possibility to deal with huge amounts of data that can hardly be analysed by a single person enables cartographers to find ways to automate data processing for cartographic visualisation. This is where the term neocartography comes into play, which gives credit to the most recent trends in the field of map-making. Continue reading
Global Spaces of Food Production
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In the year 2000 there were approximately 15 million square km of cropland and 28 million square km of pasture which are represented in the two main maps. These are equal to 12% respectively 22% of the ice-free land surface. This is according to estimates of a study on the geographic distribution of global agricultural lands by Ramankutty et al (published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 2008) who used a methodology of combining agricultural inventory data and satellite-derived land cover data to come to these figures (data can be accessed via Columbia University’s SEDAC). Continue reading
Athletes at the 2012 Paralympics
“It’s Official – London 2012 to be Biggest Paralympic Games Ever“, was the proud announcement at the Official Website of the Paralympic Movement ahead of this year’s Paralympic Games in London. While the games can not yet compete with the Olympics (over 10,000 athletes came to London just a few weeks ago), a new record has been set with over 4,200 athletes taking part at the 2012 Paralympics in the British capital. According to Wikipedia, this is “an increase of 250 athletes in comparison to the 2008 Summer Paralympics. They will represent 164 countries, 17 more than in Beijing. Fourteen countries will be making their Paralympic Games début: Antigua and Barbuda, Brunei, Cameroon, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mozambique, North Korea, San Marino, the Solomon Islands, and the US Virgin Islands“.
Leaving absolute numbers aside, the participation patterns in the Paralympics as shown in the following Worldmapper-style cartogram are not that strikingly different to those from the Olympics (a comparison to the Olympic Games can be found here). However, many interesting differences can still be spotted when looking at the details: China, and even more so Brazil are amongst the countries who (in relation) play an even bigger role, while the European dominance is slightly reduced, partly due to smaller shares of Eastern Europe (where Ukraine strikes out as one of the larger participants). In the Pacific, New Zealand’s size shrunk from is far larger number of athletes at the Olympics. The following map shows in proportion where all the sportsmen and women have traveled to London from this year (the two inset maps show the world’s population distribution in comparison and a conventional land area map as a reference):
Down to Earth: 32nd International Geographical Congress
The world of geography is coming together in the German city of Cologne (Köln) for the 32nd International Geographical Congress. The IGC is the quadrennial meeting of the International Geographical Union (IGU). Continue reading