Challenging Maps and Exploration
Proudly held with the Royal Geographical Society
Challenging Maps and Exploration: Cartographic Encounters with Empire, Indigeneity, and Contemporary Exploring
30 October 2025, in person and online
9:30am-4:00pm UK time
Join us for a day of lively discussions about historical and contemporary issues around maps and exploration.
Below you can browse the programme, meet the speakers, and learn more about our generous co-organiser and host, the Royal Geographical Society.
Booking essential - Click here to visit the RGS website and book your free ticket!
If you are attending the event online, the joining instructions will be included in your confirmation email. Attendees in person will receive coffee/tea and lunch.
Programme
9.30am - Registration, teas and coffee
10.00am - Panel 1 and Q&A: Cartographic Encounters with Empire
- Chair: Dr. Katie Parker, Royal Geographical Society
- Dr. Ed Armston-Sheret, Royal Geographical Society
- Professor Sujit Sivasundaram, Cambridge University
11.15am - Comfort break
11.30am - Panel 2 and Q&A: Cartographic Encounters with Indigeneity
- Chair: Dr. Sana Murrani, Plymouth University
- Professor Michael Bravo, Cambridge University
- Dr. Rohini Rai, Brunel University
12.45pm - Sandwich lunch served in the Main Hall
2.00pm - Panel 3 and Q&A: Cartographic Encounters with Contemporary Exploring
- Chair: Tom Allen, Royal Geographical Society with IBG
- Felicity Aston MBE, Explorer, writer, and climate scientist
- Phoebe Smith, Explorer and travel writer
4.00pm - Conclusions and wrap-up
Meet the Speakers
Panel 1 - Cartographic Encounters with Empire
Dr. Ed Armston-Sheret and Professor Sujit Sivasundaram, chaired by Dr. Katie Parker
How are maps and empire intertwined? How do maps reflect or challenge the power hierarchies of global empire? How can they reveal and elide the multiple minds and hands that go into making them?
Our panel will take on these questions and more in an examination of the cartographies of empire in the modern periods.
Dr. Ed Armston-Sheret is a historian of exploration with a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Alongside his role within the Research and Higher Education Team at the RGS-IBG, he is a Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (School of Advanced Study, University of London).
Ed's first book, On the Backs of Others: Rethinking the History of British Geographical Exploration (2024, University of Nebraska Press), examines the relationship between empire and exploration. It shines a light on the contributions of the people and animals who made British journeys of 'discovery' possible, but who were often written out of history.
Sujit Sivasundaram is Professor of World History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow in History at Gonville and Caius College.
His book, Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire (2020, University of Chicago Press) won both the British Academy Book Prize and the Bentley Book Prize in World History.
Centring on the Global South and paying particular attention to island nations and coastal communities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Sujit’s important book flips the Western-centric narrative of the ‘Age of Revolution’ on its head. It reveals a realistic perspective of empire between the late 18th and early 19th centuries and facilitates necessary conversations about imperialist violence, resource theft, environmental history, and the consequences of interfering in Indigenous futures.
Dr. Katie Parker is the Cartographic Collections Manager at the RGS, where she promotes and preserves its collection of over a million maps, charts, atlases, globes, and gazetteers. Trained as a historian (PhD, University of Pittsburgh), Katie is an expert in the histories of maps and mapping, exploration, empire, and the early modern Pacific world. Her publications include Historical Sea Charts: Visions and Voyages Through the Ages (2021, White Star).
Katie teaches the history of maps and mapping at London Rare Book School (School of Advanced Study, University of London) and the History of Architecture at NYU London. She is Co-Editor of Imago Mundi - the international journal for the history of cartography - and Administrative Editor of the Hakluyt Society.
Panel 2 - Cartographic Encounters with Indigeneity
Professor Michael Bravo and Dr. Rohihi Rai, chaired by Dr. Sana Murrani
Western maps and map archives often erase or minimise Indigenous presence. However, maps can also be powerful tools for Indigenous peoples to (re)claim sovereignty, place names, resources, and more.
The panellists will discuss their specific projects with peoples from the Arctic and the Himalaya, as well as more general issues of Indigenous maps and mapping.
Michael Bravo is Professor of the History and Geography of Science at the University of Cambridge, where he is also the Head of the Living Cryosphere Lab at the Scott Polar Research Institute.
He is author of the acclaimed North Pole: Nature and Culture (2019, Reaktion Books), a cultural and scientific history of the Pole spanning five centuries from the Renaissance to the present day. The book explores humanity's long-standing obsession with this fascinating region, its role in imperialist ambitions, and how important it was for astronomers, philosophers, and politicians alike.
In June 2014, he launched with Canadian partners an online Pan-Inuit Trails Atlas spanning the Canadian Arctic drawing on maps drawn by Inuit from land claims and historical literature.
Dr. Rohini Rai is a sociologist of ‘race’, ethnicity, and migration, and currently the Lecturer in Sociology of Race at Brunel University of London.
Her areas of research include racialisation and indigeneity in relation to Northeast India and Eastern Himalayan borderlands. Rohini's current research focuses on the politics of indigeneity in the context of Eastern Himalaya and Himalayan diaspora in the UK, focusing on three elements- archives, dances and storytelling.
Outside academia, she is the co-founder of the Critical Himalayan Collective.
Dr. Sana Murrani is a creative researcher whose work explores critical cartography and heritage, as well as forced displacement and migration, through creative trauma-informed methodologies.
She is an Associate Professor in Spatial Practice at the University of Plymouth, founder of its Displacement Studies Research Network, and co-founder of the Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement Research Collective. Sana is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre.
Sana is the author of Rupturing Architecture: Spatial Practices of Refuge in Response to War and Violence in Iraq (2003–2023) (2024, Bloomsbury).
Panel 3 - Cartographic Encounters with Contemporary Exploring
Felicity Aston MBE and Phoebe Smith, chaired by Tom Allen
Join these pioneering explorers as they share some of their favourite map and navigational stories, how historical maps influence and inspire their expeditions.
Our panel will also consider the practical use of maps in contemporary exploration with the RGS' Expeditions and Fieldwork Manager.
Felicity Aston MBE is a British polar explorer, author, speaker, and student research scientist. In 2012, she became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica: a journey that earnt her a place in the book of Guinness World Records!
Her Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition was the first to ‘Tweet to the Pole’ and material from her Pole of Cold Expedition has been developed into a travelling art exhibition.
Felicity has written five books and regularly produces articles for various publications in the UK and abroad. She is currently undertaking research investigating airborne microplastic deposited on Arctic Ocean sea ice based at the National Oceanography Centre and the University of Southampton.
Phoebe Smith is an adventurer and award-winning travel writer, photographer, presenter and broadcaster. In 2025, she was presented with the Ness Award by the RGS for her promotion of accessible adventure, particularly to women and those from under-privileged communities.
Phoebe is author of 11 books including Extreme Sleeps and Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Pilgrim Paths (2024, HarperNorth) which was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year 2025.
She is co-founder of the #WeTwo Foundation, a charity empowering underprivileged youngsters through carbon negative expeditions. She was awarded the Sustainability Travel Writer of the Year 2025 at the TravMedia Awards.
Tom Allen is the Royal Geographical Society's Expeditions and Fieldwork Manager. He is an explorer, author, trail prospector and responsible travel advocate specialising in the Caucasus region. In addition to supporting fieldwork and expeditions practitioners, Tom works to expand the Society’s assistance to many more people, from leading experts to the simply curious, who want to make the world a better place as they travel with purpose and develop geographical knowledge.
In 2016 he was the recipient of the prestigious Land Rover Bursary, helping establish a new Transcaucasian Trail long-distance trekking route across the Caucasus region, and exploring and mapping the trail’s first national section across Armenia. He has published numerous blogs, books and documentary films inspired by expeditions made on foot, bicycle, horseback, and by packraft, as well as building an online resource for budding bicycle travellers in the form of his long-running blog, TomsBikeTrip.com
About the RGS
The Royal Geographical Society is an established learned society, professional body for geography, and registered charity. It is based in London with the Institute of British Geographers.
The RGS was founded in 1830 to advance geographical science, which remains its core purpose. This is achieved through supporting geographical research, education, fieldwork and expeditions, as well as advocacy, supporting geographers in professional practice, and promoting geography to public audiences.
You can explore all the RGS' wonderful resources, research, and upcoming events - and of course its maps! - online at RGS.org
The Sunderland Collection would like to extend its sincere thanks to the Royal Geographical Society, in particular to Cartographic Collections Manager Dr. Katie Parker and the RGS Events team for their assistance in producing and co-ordinating this event. We are highly appreciative of the Society's support and enthusiasm for The Sunderland Collection's mission.
© RGS-IBG
About The Sunderland Collection
The Sunderland Collection is a curation of early maps and atlases based in Switzerland. It aspires to be as accessible as possible for study or pure enjoyment, and to use maps to support ideas, creativity, journeys, inspiration, and discussions. The Collection was founded over 40 years ago by Dr. Neil V. Sunderland (FRGS) and is managed by Helen Sunderland-Cohen (FRGS).
The Sunderland Collection Symposia are dynamic, hybrid conferences that aim to bring map enthusiasts of all backgrounds into conversation with the latest ideas and cartographic developments.
Click below to find out about our inaugural Symposium, Maps are too Exciting! Digital Innovations in Mapping, held at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford (October 2024).
In our podcast, WHAT'S YOUR MAP? you can enjoy more conversations about maps and mapping with an eclectic range of international guests!
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