What is Critical Cartography? A Conversation with Dr. Annette Kim

Have you ever heard of critical cartography? After taking Dr. Kim’s course “Critical Cartography and Urban Spatial Ethnography”, Sam knew that we needed to have Dr. Kim on the show. In this course, USC students have the opportunity to consider mapping conventions and peoples, phenomena, patterns, behaviors, etc. that traditional mapping leaves out. Join us for an amazing conversation with Dr. Annette Kim about the importance of critical thinking and nuance in policy and planning as well as her background and research interests and experiences.  

About Dr. Kim: Annette M. Kim, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy. She is also the Director of SLAB, the newly formed spatial analysis laboratory at Price that advances the visualization of the social sciences for public service through teaching, research, and public engagement.

Her research experiments with ways to recover data of overlooked peoples and phenomenon by incorporating fieldwork and humanities knowledge into spatial analysis. She utilizes critical cartography and spatial ethnography to re-conceptualize contemporary urbanism and find more inclusive and humane ways to design and govern the 21st century city. She has also researched the development of real estate markets and the reformation of property rights in transition countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. Her books include Sidewalk City: Re-Mapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and Learning to be Capitalists: Entrepreneurs in Vietnam’s Transition Economy (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Previously, Dr. Kim was Associate Professor at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She received her Ph.D. in city and regional planning and masters of visual studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She received her masters in public policy and urban planning from Harvard University and her B.A. in architecture and studio art from Wellesley College. She is a native of southern California.

Dr. Kim USC Profile