Chapter 5 Deconstructing the Map

Harley’s basic argument in this essays is that “we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography” (150).

Using this social theory view, “It will be shown that even ‘scientific maps’ are a product not only of ‘the rules of the order of geometry and reason’ but also of the norms and values of the order of social traditions” (152).

 Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:  What is knowledge?  How is knowledge acquired?  What do people know?  How do we know what we know?  Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:  What is knowledge?  How is knowledge acquired?  What do people know?  How do we know what we know?

“Deconstruction urges us to read between the lines of maps—‘in the margins of the text’— and through its tropes to discover the silences and contradictions that challenge the apparent honesty of the image. We begin to learn that cartographic facts are only facts within a specific cultural perspective. We start to understand how maps, like art, far from being ‘a transparent opening to the world,’ are but ‘a particular human way... of looking at the world’” (153).

“In the scientific model there is an assumption that the objects in the world to be mapped are real and objective, and that they enjoy an existence independent of the cartographer; that their reality can be expressed in mathematical terms; that systematic observation and measurement offer the only route to cartographic truth; and that this truth can be independently verified” (154).

“In the map itself, social structures are often disguised beneath an abstract, instrumental space, or incarcerated in the coordinates of computer mapping” (156).  “Pick a printed or a manuscript map from the drawer almost at random and what stands out is the unfailing way its text is as much commentary on the social structure of a particular nation or place as it is on its topography” (157).  The “rule of ethnocentrism” plays out in the hierarchy of mapping. “The more powerful, the more prominent” (158). “In the map itself, social structures are often disguised beneath an abstract, instrumental space, or incarcerated in the coordinates of computer mapping” (156).  “Pick a printed or a manuscript map from the drawer almost at random and what stands out is the unfailing way its text is as much commentary on the social structure of a particular nation or place as it is on its topography” (157).  The “rule of ethnocentrism” plays out in the hierarchy of mapping. “The more powerful, the more prominent” (158).

“Maps are slippery customers” (160).

“ Maps are a cultural text. By accepting their textuality we are able to embrace a number of different interpretive possibilities. Instead of just the transparency of clarity we can discover the pregnancy of the opaque. To fact we can add myth, and instead of innocence we may expect duplicity ” (159).

To deconstruct a map is to “reinscribe and resituate meanings, events and objects within broader movements and structures; it is, so to speak, to reverse the imposing tapestry in order to expose in all its unglamorously disheveled tangle the threads constituting the well-heeled image it presents to the world” (159).

“Rather than being inconsequential marginalia, the emblems in cartouches and decorative title pages can be regarded as basic to the way they [maps] convey their cultural meaning” (160). The modern map often moves away from decoration, trying to present a more “scientific” text. This is an attempt “to purge itself [the map] of ambiguity and alternative possibility”(162). “Rather than being inconsequential marginalia, the emblems in cartouches and decorative title pages can be regarded as basic to the way they [maps] convey their cultural meaning” (160). The modern map often moves away from decoration, trying to present a more “scientific” text. This is an attempt “to purge itself [the map] of ambiguity and alternative possibility”(162).

“There is nothing revolutionary in the idea that cartography is an art of persuasive communication” (163). “... rhetoric is a part of the way all texts work and that all maps are rhetorical” (163). “There is nothing revolutionary in the idea that cartography is an art of persuasive communication” (163). “... rhetoric is a part of the way all texts work and that all maps are rhetorical” (163).

“All maps strive to frame their message in the context of an audience. All maps state an argument about the world.... All maps employ the common devices of rhetoric such as invocations of authority (especially in ‘scientific’ maps) and appeals to a potential readership through the use of colors, decoration, typography, dedications, or written justifications of their method. Rhetoric may be concealed but it is always present, for there is no description without performance.

Maps “extend and reinforce the legal statues, territorial imperatives, and values stemming from the exercise of political power” (164). Maps are essential in maintaining power. They facilitate “surveillance and control;” they are “crucial to maintenance of state power—to its boundaries, to its commerce, to its internal administration, to control of populations, and it its military strength.” Maps create a spatial panopticon. (165). Maps “extend and reinforce the legal statues, territorial imperatives, and values stemming from the exercise of political power” (164). Maps are essential in maintaining power. They facilitate “surveillance and control;” they are “crucial to maintenance of state power—to its boundaries, to its commerce, to its internal administration, to control of populations, and it its military strength.” Maps create a spatial panopticon. (165).

Maps are authoritarian images. Without our being aware of it maps can reinforce and legitimate the status quo. Sometimes agents of change, they can equally become conservative documents. But in either case the map is never neutral. Where it seem to be neutral it is the sly ‘rhetoric of neutrality’ that is trying to persuade us” (168).