**5. From human to humane geography**

While global awareness about the planet's environmental future was emerging, simultaneously there were calls for more attention about the planet's human family. The social sciences were concerned about population numbers and growth, gender inequality, economic livelihood in different sectors and nongovernmental organizations. These scholarly communities realized that greater detail included mapping topics about the human condition that were ignored. The actual "causes" for this greater interest in the human condition can likely be traced to several sources, one being the increased awareness in "visual earth" worlds from satellite imagery and greater global media coverage about "what is happening where" on the planet. This increased visualization was occurring at the same time there was greater interest in many global worlds, especially in the "global rich" world and efforts to study and improve human/ environment worlds. Already much of the world was experiencing some degree of social unrest about the "norm" in social values and political worlds. Protests, parades, legal challenges as well as race, gender and class divisions were fueling both mild and serious challenges to existing bureaucracies whether in the commercial, secular or political sectors.

Examples of these challenges were on full visual display for national, regional and global audiences around the world in television reporting, magazine content (more than words) and then on personal computer screens. They were transborder, international and cross-cultural accounts about "a visual planetary livelihood," not restricted mostly to the daily lives of those in the rich and developed worlds. The challenges for those in the geography and cartography communities were twofold: one, to learn more about their root causes and impacts; and two, to present and inform/educate public institutions and organizations about these social, political and environmental changes that were occurring almost "everywhere." Corporate, scholarly and political communities began to look seriously at issues about the causes of poverty, racial and gender discrimination, exploitation, crime, class warfare and welfare, health conditions, disease outbreaks, public spending on education and food distribution, environmental quality and justice, mental/cognitive maps and the many kinds of conflict (economic, religious, cultural) that were emerging and visible on the planet. It was not enough for social scientists to just explore and discuss these issues in a non-spatial context. All these issues exist in spaces, places and regions. The "where" feature needed to be examined not only as an issue but also to explore "why" or root causes. These challenges presented many "firsts" to those looking at the above topics, that is, to look beyond the concept or terminology to address mapping where these conditions and problems were occurring and to whom. Mapping was considered an integral part of addressing serious political, economic and social solutions and presenting humane solutions. These issues presented challenges for scholarly and policy communities in their own scholarly discipline, but also in informing a wider public. They were not just a concern for those in an Australian or Italian suburb or a port city in Southeast Asia or a coastal West Africa village, but everywhere on the planet. Human geography itself was changing not only in content, that is, what it studied, but how it presented and represented materials to global visual communities. Creativity was called for in presenting, informing and bettering the human and environmental worlds.

Accompanying these changes in the social and behavioral sciences were also changes between the sciences and the humanities. The worlds of those studying language, art, film, music and literature are often thought of as being separate and distinct fields different from those in the social and policy sciences. But they really are not completely separate scholarly fields of exploration and it is time to explore some common intersections between these two broad categories. There have been small, but increasing visible and influential, scholarly communities in the social sciences that are exploring some common grounds with those in the humanities and viceversa. One example is the professional journal *Geohumanities.* Authors explore the intersections between music and culture, film and social conditions, language and the state, minorities in advertising, gender and city planning and architecture, diseases and environmental therapy, and landscapes of art and social/political protest. Many pioneering scholars in the social sciences see the visual and performing arts as ways to better understand the human condition. The same also applies to those in the arts,

#### *Perspective Chapter: Creative Mapping and Mapping Creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102729*

film, and drama who observe many common linkages when it comes to looking at morality and the arts, the politics of caring, politics and museum displays, political protests and parades, censorship and politics, racial and gender discrimination in public education, television or internet policies, and politics as being a major influence in religion, sports and daily life. The recognition of overlapping spheres of interest and policy formation are stimulating some creative efforts by exploring some common grounds [12, 13].

Not to be eliminated from this discussion is how computers and computer technologies have changed not only the ways maps are made, but also the content of maps themselves. The very notion of having computer-designed maps radically changed the ways they were prepared and produced as well as their use in instruction, public policy, the corporate sector and for personal use. Creativity was and is much at work in the cartographic projections that were used, the designs themselves, the topics or themes mapped and their implementation for multiple purposes in the classroom, for scientific analysis and public policy and to prepare datasets on new topics. The technologies ushered in completely "new ways" of looking at "old topics" and "new ways" of exploring "new topics" at personal, community, national and global scales. The entire field of cartography in the 1980s and 1990s changed—the way maps were prepared, designed, reproduced and used [14–16]. Entire new subfields emerged including popular cartography, citizen cartography, critical cartography, medical cartography, behavioral cartography and digital mapping that brought new perspectives looking at traditional cultural, historical, political and environmental topics [17, 18]. Many of these innovations were considered radical as they included topics not considered previously. All fields and subfields of geography were affected by these innovations in designs, production and use. They include climate change and weather forecasting, natural disaster preparedness and impacts, electoral and redistricting geography, gender, race and justice issues, health care planning and the diffusion of diseases, children's and tourists' perceptions of landscapes, time/space logistics in human mobilities, language and religious diversity, and fluctuations in demographic change and ad hoc market economies. Complementing these emerging and creative cartographies of the earth's surface are maps using GIS systems, satellites and social media technologies. All continue to inspire new and different ways of not only studying a topic or a place but also mapping it [19–21]. The creators of these and other ongoing mapping innovations include a broad mix of interdisciplinary and international scholars who seek to know more about the importance of constructing, informing and educating both traditional and new map users.
