EuroCarto 2026 Workshop: Atlases as Learning Tools in Higher Education: Concepts and Practice
Joint (in person)* workshop of the ICA Peace and Conflict Cartography Working Group and the ICA Atlas Commission
Organisers: Mela Zuljevic, Eric Losang and Jana Moser (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography - IfL), Iaroslav Boretskii (Centre for East European and International Studies, ZOiS)
* The workshop organisers will aim to host an online version of the workshop for interested participants in the months after the EuroCarto 2026 conference.
This joint workshop aims to explore the potential role of atlases as learning tools in higher education by engaging with the productive tensions between different understandings and uses of atlases across disciplines. In particular, we seek to review, discuss, and envision models of atlases that can advance students’ critical, analytical, and creative skills in higher education (e.g., in the political and social sciences and the humanities) through interactive educational formats. Starting from examples introduced by the workshop organisers and participants, the workshop aims to outline how maps and other atlas materials can be operationalised to engage students with critical questions about seeing and representing the world, its regions, and geospatial data. In doing so, it seeks to identify specific directions for translating these critical questions into learning formats, both when conceptualising new (especially digital) atlases and when reactivating existing ones.
By engaging with practical materials and a set of critical questions related to the possible role of atlases in higher education, the workshop also aims to contribute to theoretical discussions on diverse conceptual framings and competing ideas of what an atlas is—or is not. We argue that tensions and contradictions between different disciplinary understandings of atlases render them boundary objects that can provide a fruitful platform for interdisciplinary exchange and critical praxis. In the cartographic and geographic tradition, an atlas is considered a book of maps, a storehouse of geographic information (Monmonier 1981), with a clear taxonomy and structure. However, in the expanded field of visual art and design, there has been a proliferation of thematic, subjective, or research-based atlases, often without a geographic focus, which understand mapping as a strategy to “make the complex accessible” (Abrams and Hall 2006). Such approaches rely less on fixed taxonomy, structure, and sequence; instead, these elements can shift as part of a design process that is often collaborative.
This workshop aims to explore such tensions while focusing on the questions of shared structure and flexible boundaries in relation to atlas taxonomy, sequence and processual character, to articulate potentials of an atlas as an educational and learning tools.
Workshop Format
The workshop organisers will begin by introducing a set of critical questions related to the use of atlases as learning tools in higher education, which will help distinguish possible roles of atlases and directions for designing atlas-based educational formats. These questions, roles, and directions will focus on the potential of atlases for discussing geospatial topics with students in the social sciences, arts, and humanities, as well as in interdisciplinary contexts that can benefit from critically engaging with geovisualisations. The organisers will introduce these questions by reflecting on their experience with the recently developed atlas titled Visualising Conflict/Peace. This digital atlas (visualisingconflictpeace.de) gathers research cases on diverse topics related to conflict and cooperation, such as contested borders, slow violence, or war trauma, in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, in South Caucasus. In particular, the organisers will address how this atlas translates into learning tools through its Cases, Readings and a Toolbox.
After a short introduction (10 minutes) by the organisers, participants will be divided into smaller groups to discuss other examples of activating atlases as learning tools, with the aim of identifying specific roles and directions for conceptualising new atlas-based educational formats. Each participant is invited to prepare a three-minute presentation of an atlas they consider representative of the tensions and potentials addressed in the workshop. For example, participants may bring atlases that could serve as tools for teaching critical cartography, mapping, and visualisation, or present conceptual approaches to operationalising atlases for the critical viewing, reading, and making of maps. Historical or contemporary examples in print, multimedia, or digital formats are welcome, especially those focused on visualising topics such as conflict, peace, political geography, cultural memory, socio-economic relations, and environmental concerns.
The presentations (20 minutes) will be followed by a group discussion (30 minutes). Moderators will guide the conversation by highlighting different understandings and tensions, with the aim of identifying a shared structure and flexible boundaries for what an atlas might be. After these discussions, the groups will come together to formulate key questions that atlas-based learning should address (15 minutes). In the second part of the workshop, participants will engage in a co-design process (45 minutes), working again in groups to envision and outline specific formats and directions for atlases as learning tools. The final session (30 minutes) will bring these insights together and reflect on the productive interdisciplinary tensions and potentials of atlases as boundary objects in education.
Registration
Please send a short email explaining your motivation to join the workshop by July 15th, 2026 to M_Zuljevic@leibniz-ifl.de. The participation in the workshop is free. The preferred number of participants is 15.
Bibliography
Abrams, J. and Hall, P. 2006. Else/Where: Mapping: New Cartographies of Networks and Territories. University of Minneapolis.
Monmonier, Mark. 1981. “Trends in atlas development”. Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, 18:2. https://doi.org/10.3138/1572-LG43-R75T-5455
Star, Susan L. 2010. “This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept”. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617.
