A short overview of food mapping: Developing a cross-disciplinary approach

Traditional mapping practices have drastically changed in recent years from having an apolitical, authorative voice. Enabled by new technologies and a variety of visualisation methods, maps are no longer singular, static or reductive but instead are being transformed to make visible and to empower by engaging different perspectives, subjects and tempos. Often, new mapping practices enable - and are enabled by - new ways of approaching contemporary urban issues. Urban food practices, a topic of increasing interest due to rising urbanisation, environmental concerns and a desire to reconnect to nature and one's food source, are prolific in uptaking new mapping styles. Using various forms of artist, participatory and community mapping approaches, amongst others, food maps provide a rich arena in which to apply mapping as a tool to communicate new ways of understanding urban space. This paper explores the young history of urban food maps and mapping from anthropology, geography and urban design perspectives with the aim to establish a first systematic overview of urban food mapping's visual various outputs and production assembly processes. This overview seeks to explore the tensions, criticisms and new theoretical and methodological directions that such mapping introduces across disciplines in relation to key themes that include identity, the senses, ecology and productivity.