Orna Vaadia: Neo Scouting mapping: Mobile mapping in conflict spaces

Orna Vaadia: Neo Scouting mapping: Mobile mapping in conflict spaces

The presentation will introduce the conceptualization of a new form of mapping: “Neo-Scouting mapping” as an outcome of mobile mapping technologies and will seek to examine its mode of operation in conflict spaces. The mobility and presence in space that distinguish this form of mapping, will be examined against the background of the hybrid spatiality in which this mapping process operates, which merges digital and physical spaces. With this in mind, the “Neo-Scouting- mapping” will be examined as an active agent with a role in the conflict’s dynamic, through space and identity production processes.

Dr. Orna Vaadia is a scholar whose research interests lie at the intersection of cartography, technology and socio-spatial power relations. She submitted her doctoral dissertation at the Tel-Aviv University in 2016 under the title: “Maps in schoolbooks and the spatial imaginary: The education system in Israel: 1903-1967”. In her postdoc at the Department of Geography and Environmental Development in Ben-Gurion University she focused on the uses of the New Spatial Media for Counter-Mapping and Memory Activism among Bedouins and Palestinians in Israel/ Palestine. Her recent study, in her postdoc at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, focuses on mobile mapping in conflict spaces in general and in particular, on the case of South Hebron Hills and their representations in the navigation and mapping app ‘Amud Anan’.