Abstract:
This paper presents the methodology used to prepare an Atlas on armed conflict in Antioquia. Particularly, we focused on the analysis of quantitative map construction through Geographic Information Systems. This paper remarks that even though there is an emerging academic debate around the nature of databases on armed conflict, discussion on mapping methodologies usefulness, scope and constraints is virtually inexistent. Since maps are not neutral, as they represent spaces to the most of their ability to create them, we will dwell upon unveiling and exploring three aspects underlying the creation of maps on war, which are generally kept hidden, as a contribution to critical studies based on SIG’s. Those are analytic elements that could prove useful both for someone reading a map and for someone producing it, namely: (i) the consequences resulting from the use of distinct quantitative databases, (ii) the role played by the ways of data statistical classification, and (iii) the manifold ways of cartographic representation SIG’s provide. The maps compiled in this Atlas, just as we show it in this paper, allow to value the manifold analytic results resulting from co-variating those aspects (sources, classifications and representations) when it comes to constructing and reading a map.
Keywords: Armed conflict, Antioquia, geographic information systems, cartography.
