CARTOGRAPHY

YOUR LANGUAGE, NARRATIVES, AND SOCIAL PRACTICE

Abstract

This article examines Cartography beyond its practical/official/academic function, exploring its dimension as a social practice and a means of cultural expression. Through the analysis of various types of maps, the text highlights how they are constructed, narrated, and interpreted within specific social contexts, reflecting the worldviews and values of the individuals and societies that produce them. The aim of this article is to analyze how these various cartographic documents, which we call maps, contribute to the construction of narratives and perspectives on the world of life, emphasizing our social practices as the spatialization of life through maps, which shapes and is shaped by cultural and social perceptions. Thus, it is demonstrated that maps function not only as tools for geographical orientation but also as powerful vehicles of expression, representation, and presentation of a worldview of everyday practices. In this way, it is argued that maps are living documents, loaded with subjectivity, that narrate and continuously rewrite the stories of the spaces that present themselves as maps as chronicles. Finally, it is defended that Cartography should also be seen as a form of visual language that actively participates in the construction of meanings, whether real or imaginary worlds, as well as in the negotiation of identities and differences, transcending its practical functionality to become a profoundly human and socially usual act of communication.