Maps can lie, wield power and even start wars. But mapping, which describes the process of selecting and plotting information spatially, suggests a way of looking beyond the finished artefact, thereby eluding the charges leveled against the map. In recent discourse, mapping emerges from the ashes of the imperial map in a blaze of hopeful rhetoric: it is participatory, generative, revealing, enabling, performative. This paper will examine the historical and political baggage of the map and the potentials of mapping as an emerging concept. Building on the expansive discourse on maps and mapping in cartography, geography and history, I will focus this discussion on mapping as it has been interpreted in contemporary design, art, planning and education, drawing from some of my own experiences using mapping as a pedagogical tool in design education.