Pandemic Cartographies: A Conversation on Mappings, Imaginings and Emotions

This paper is a response to the pervasive spread of both cartographic materials related to the COVID-19 pandemic and critical commentaries about such materials. Written by four Italian map-scholars with different theoretical backgrounds but similar socio-cultural and emotional concerns, this paper emerged spontaneously, following the impulse to grasp the rapid movement of coronavirus cartographies, particularly online. Through conversations carried out during the lockdown, the authors collaboratively observed how both scientific and governmental, as well as existential and affective features of the pandemic have been informed by cartographic imaginings. This plurality of cartographic visuals and mapping practices, which appeared soon after the coronavirus outbreak, requires exponential research angles. Approaching the pandemic through and in the proximity of maps, mapping practices, map-like objects and creative cartographies, this paper aims to foreground the speculative, empirical and fast-moving expressions of the pandemic’s cartographic imagery.