In referring to the work of Foucault and post-Foucaultian social theory as the ‘ new cartographer’ (along with the new archivist), Gilles Deleuze pointed to a mode of investigation and writing that sought, not to trace out representations of the real, but to construct mappings that refigure relations in ways that render alternative worlds. In this project, we begin with this understanding of new cartographies/new mappings, and then turn to the ways in which these new mappings are emerging within social movement, activist, and artist projects to rethink economic practices and institutions. In forging this research group, we are interested in understanding how this particular genealogy of a new cartography is being and can be mobilized to render new images (and practices) of economies, how it is being deployed in community and alternative economic projects, and how it is being used to understand the institutions and networks of economic organizations such as corporations, military-state economies, and the university.

The Rethinking Economies Research Group emerged over the past eight months out of conversations stimulated by the Cultures-of Economies Research Group (COE) and the Social Movements Research Group (SMRG). The focus on mapping and new cartographies emerged out of specific sections of the SMRG focused on ‘Spacing Movements’ and the emergence in social movements of innovative appropriations of mapping practices and theory to study and mobilize interest around structures and practices of the economy, alternative economic spaces of interaction and flows, and approaches to the refiguration of the local.

In the next year we plan to focus on conceptual and technical issues involved in using these new mappings to elaborate the topographies and topologies of economic relations and power;using network and meshwork mappings to make new relations/spaces/practices visible, including experimental mappings of institutional and individual movements and flows. The mappings group will also be working with the Alternative Economies Community Group and with other community and participatory mapping projects to develop experimental mappings of community, state, and private economies. The purpose of these mappings is partly to rethink and refigure the role of representation of spaces, regions, and identities in thinking economies. It is also partly an effort to investigate the possibilities for a cartographic economics that responds to the methodological and conceptual innovations deriving from genealogy, schizoanalysis, situationism, and psycho-geography.

One specific area on which the group will focus in this first year is building links to artists and artist groups working with mappings. From the intersection between mapping and traditional art found in the work of such figures as Oyvind Fahlstrom and Mark Lombardi to theorists such as Brian Holmes’ reworking of the role of space in contemporary site-specific projects (particularly those of the Situationists), the concept of the ‘map’ has become even more central to contemporary visual culture. It is our hope to further explore this connection through the study of relevant readings, visiting speakers, but also events that will allow for academics and artists to begin a dialogue about these issues. There are several individuals in the local area and we hope to organize ‘evenings with’ these artists, in conjunction with the Ackland Museum.