Putting Indigenous Place-Names and Languages Back on Maps

Please join the Rowan Department of Geography, Planning, & Sustainability for the second of four special guest lectures and receptions that highlight the diversity of our degree programs and perspectives therein.  These special lectures are part of an effort to celebrate our Department’s 50th year at Rowan University.  This lecture explores themes within Geographic Information Science, which correspond to our undergraduate BS, minor, CUGS in Geographic Information Science, and post-bac certificate in Cartography and GIS.   Dr. Kelsey Leonard is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Waters, Climate and Sustainability and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo.

How many Indigenous Nations and communities can you name? Who are the Indigenous Peoples original to the land you now reside and work on? In this presentation, Dr. Kelsey Leonard will discuss how Indigenous places and names are missing from maps. Subsequently, this erasure has led to absence of Indigenous participation in regional planning and decision-making that directly affects their communities. This presentation will argue the need for the decolonization of the cartography and GIS disciplines through mapping for Indigenous peoples and use of maps made by Indigenous peoples. Specific methods that could potentially lead towards decolonized GIS practices, as well as the goals of this decolonization of mapping initiative, will also be discussed.

• Virtual and in-person in Discovery Hall, Room 201
• Reception to follow in Discovery Hall, 2^nd Floor Atrium
• Registration required: alumni.rowan.edu/indigenous