Beatrice Barkholz examines how Neogeography—the participatory, digital mapping enabled by Geoweb platforms—reshapes the relationship between representational space (the lived city), representations of space (maps), and spatial practice (walking), drawing on Doreen Massey’s critique of traditional cartography and Michel de Certeau’s notions of strategy, tactics, and urban storytelling. Traditional Western maps, static and totalising, function as technologies of power, but digital maps introduce fluid, interactive, and multi-layered spatial representations, allowing users to navigate, customise, and even publish their own cartographies. However, Barkholz stresses that corporate ownership, especially by Google, embeds these tools within capitalist power relations, commodifying spatial data and embedding consumption into navigation. De Certeau’s contrast between the panoramic “Icarus” view and the embodied walker blurs in the digital era: smartphones give users an elevated, map-like perspective, yet this empowerment is partial, since corporations retain the truly omniscient vantage point through aggregated data. While GPS guidance can limit the walker’s improvisational resistance—turning spatial practice into algorithmic compliance—it also reintroduces personal narratives into public space through geotagging, user reviews, and shared images. These digital traces make previously invisible urban memories and social connections visible, altering the “anti-museum” nature of city memory that de Certeau described. Barkholz concludes that although digital maps democratise access to spatial knowledge, they remain fragmented, commercialised representations, and their influence may erode the agency and subversive potential of urban walking.
Barkholz, B., 2017. Walking in the City with Google Maps.
