Second Mapping Identities Workshop Hailed a Success

On Friday 6 June, UHI Orkney welcomed participants in the second Mapping Identities: Visual Depictions of Scotland workshop on Geography and Cosmology.

Like the first workshop, the event was a big success, with academics from across Europe presenting on their research. The papers and resulting discussion provided a bounty of thought-provoking discourse on concepts of centrality and periphery, islandness, representation and, of course, identity. Led by Drs. Oisín Plumb and Andrew Lind (both of INS), the project explores how maps reveal the shifting attitudes and identities of Scotland across time.

This project, funded through the generous support of an RSE Research Collaboration Grant, brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore how maps have been, and still are, used to interpret and shape Scotland’s understanding of the present, past and future.

Though the purpose of a map may superficially be merely functional, educational or descriptive, the very act of its production will have necessitated some level of selectivity. Such selectivity can include the features presented, the scale used, where the map is centred, the annotations used and where boundaries and borders are placed. 

The Mapping Identities project asks why and how such choices are made and how these choices have impacted the way that geography, cosmology, history, geology and identity has been perceived in Scotland. 

Our aim is to encourage awareness of the work being undertaken on these themes and foster new collaborations.

With two of the three workshops completed, the project is gaining pace. We look forward to hearing what emerges from the third and final workshop on 8 October at the Mitchel Library in Glasgow.