The Risk Cartographies project is part of the MACOSPOL (Mapping Controversies of Science for Politics) project funded by the European Union and headed by Bruno Latour (SciencesPo Paris). The risk cartographies project is concerned with developing ‘Internet based argumentation maps’. Risk Cartographies is an interdisciplinary project involving Computer Scientists, Sociologists and Natural Scientists that has developed two controversy case studies for testing and developing an interactive issue visualisation and navigation tool. The two case studies involve the alleged effects of nano scale particles and the contested value of dietary Supplements. The tool developed allows for the colour coded mapping of Actors, Issues, Things or Objects, and Statements pertaining to the issues on a two dimensional plane. The user can actively explore the actors (antagonists) and their position within the mapped argument structure through the statements they have made and the objects or elements which those statements connect them with. As is the case with much of the Mapping Controversy project the emphasis is on a move away from the reductive representation; of representing an argument by opposing actors, or via issues and statement as simply reducible/naturalised to/as the object alone.This detailed issue mapping should lead to pathways for navigating issues in distinction based only on statements with which they are connected and involving only those stakeholders responsible for those statements. Risk Cartographies is a project developed by the Munich Institute for Social and Sustainability Research and the Environment Science Center at the University of Augsburg under the MACOSPOL umbrella and is funded in addition by the Federal (German) Ministry for Education and Research within the social ecological research programme “Strategies to Cope with Systemic Risks”.
See the cross referenced projects for more on the Mapping Controversies projects and network.