Deconstructing the Map

Abstract

A map says to you, "Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not." It says, "I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost."And indeed you are. Were all the maps in this world destroyed and vanished under the direction of some malevolent hand, each man would be blind again, each city be made a stranger to the next, each landmark become a meaningless signpost pointing to nothing.Yet, looking at it, feeling it, running a finger along its lines, it is a cold thing, a map, humourless and dull, born of calipers and a draughtsman's board. That coastline there, that ragged scraw of scarlet ink, shows neither sand nor sea nor rock; it speaks of no mariner, blundering full sail in wakeless seas, to bequeath, on sheepskin or a slab of wood, a priceless scribble to posterity. This brown blot that marks a mountain has, for the casual eye, no other significance, though twenty men, or ten, or only one, may have squandered life to climb it. Here is a valley, there a swamp, and there a desert; and here is a river that some curious and courageous soul, like a pencil in the hand of God, first traced with bleeding feet.

GIS, Ethnography, and Cultural Research: Putting Maps Back into Ethnographic Mapping

“…Cultural geographers have unpacked the meanings and discursive power that underlie cartography and map-making (Harley 1989;Rose-Redwood 2006). Maps have the ability to concretize realities in the eyes of the observer, giving the cartographer the power to choose particular realities and (re)create them.…”

Putting sustainable fisheries on the map? Establishing no-take zones for North Sea plaice fisheries through MSC certification

“…With the borders on this map, the Dutch nation state came in (cf. [54,55]). This resulted in the odd situation that Ekofish Group and Osprey Trawlers, while not fishing under Dutch flag, have to avoid these areas that are open to all Dutch flagged vessels.…”

Knowledge brokering and boundary work for ecosystem service indicators. An urban case study in Finland

“…Traditional maps may also legitimate the dominance of instrumental knowledge and given perceptions, which may lead to excluding different views and values (Smith et al, 2013). Harley (1989) has further described that cartography has 'internal power' as a map itself exerts some influence over the world and therefore influences the shaping of their institutional and social context (Smith et al, 2013). Keeping this in mind, ES indicators should be applied carefully both in sciencepolicy processes and in stakeholder outreach (Hauck et al, 2013).…”