Critical Cartography

[surfinsofa]

Hey everyone,

I'm pretty new to the field of geography. My background is in Sociology/Anthropology and Economics, and I was considering going to graduate school in Anthro, until I discovered Geography and realized that it aligns much better with my interests. I would like to apply for a masters this fall, and I was wondering if anyone might have suggestions as to which programs would be the best fit for my interests. In general I'm interested in human geography and critical theory, with particular interests in the following:

• Critical cartography and geographies of power
  
• Land politics in the US (ownership, housing, real estate, urban renewal, urban planning, development, gentrification.)
  
• Finance, globalization, how capital flows shape space and human experience
  

If anyone has any suggestions it would be much appreciated!

Some of the programs I'm looking at right now are: Penn State, Clark, Rutgers, Minnesota, Kentucky, Ohio State, and UNC Chapel Hill.

[rising_star]

You may want to look into Arizona, Arizona State, UCONN, UNC-Charlotte, UGA, UT-Austin, UC-Berkeley, USC, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Simon Fraser, UBC, and Toronto to your list. If you just want to do a master's, you could also look at Miami (OH), University of Miami, Ohio University, and University of Miami (FL). I realize that's a lot of places but your interests are pretty vague and are covered by quite a few geography programs. You're going to have to narrow your interests down, for sure. The funding situation may be better at some of the MA-only programs.

[Origin=Goal]

The obvious choice for me would be CUNY (I think they have an MA Geo program), where David Harvey teaches, since your interested in theory, land politics, etc would seem to align themselves with his research, which includes political economy and "Right to the city" politics. Ruthie Gillmore, an incredible economic geographer and social theorist, also teaches there.

[surfinsofa]

What about specifically critical cartography? My other interests seem common enough in geography programs, but I haven't come across too many (only Rutgers it seems) in which faculty list critical cartography as an interests. Does anyone know of other departments with that focus? Or am I mistaken, and is it more common as well?

[rising_star]

Well, what do you mean by "critical cartography"? There are lots of people using cartography in lots of different ways. And, at any rate, critical cartography is more of a tool than anything else, meaning that you could use it at any of those programs if you wanted to.