Statement of Interest

I want to participate because I have been researching, have taught about, and have published in the area in question for more than 30 years. That's nearly 1/3 century. I introduced the term "cognitive map" into geography. Obviously, I am keenly interested in exchanging views on what's currently going on, especially as J. M. Blaut and I have resumed our collaboration of the 1960's and 1970's in a project called "Universal Mapping." The objectives of this project are, in some ways, very close to that of the Initiative: (1) to test the global hypothesis that mapping is a global universal through examining evidence of ontological development and the prehistoric and ethnographic records; (2) to apply the results of (1) to early childhood education; (3) to use "naive geography" to enrich public participation in the environmental planning process. To the extent that formal education and certain forms of design participation impart a kind of "Geographic Information System," the second and third objectives are related to providing "the basis for designing future Geographic Information Systems that follow human intuition and real-world ontology more closely...more easily accessible to a large range of users (including small children and Third World peasant societies).