Re-thinking Maps

Key words: Maps, cartography, Keith Jenkins, History, ideology, representation

Although apparently objective representations of the world, maps are rhetorical tools which express, like any other portrayal of reality, the values and ideology of those who design them.

Last meeting we went on talking about Keith Jenkins’ critical perception of History[1]. We recalled that the British historiographer had gone as far as to state that History was a literary construct. For him, no matter how much constrained historians are by historical evidence, when interpreting and writing about the past, they cannot do away with their own values and ideology. The work of the historian is, in consequence, contaminated with his personal views and ideology.

Of course, Jenkins arguments (which follow authors like Foucault, Lyotard and Eagleton) do not only help us establish a critical relationship with History, but with the entire body of representations about reality, whether past or present. As we discussed in class, the principles to which Jenkins refers can be easily applied to documentaries, journalism and any other type of portrayal of reality. Any representation is always mediated by individual perceptions, interests, values and ideology. It’s impossible to face reality without our own personal and cultural bulk. And this, as we agreed in class, also applies to cartography.

In our positivist world, we tend to mistakenly see geographic maps as objective representations of physical, static territories. However, the word ‘representation’ alone should make us doubt of this seeming objectiveness. Although the cartographer is also constrained by reality, the creative freedom he enjoys is not so far from that of the realist portrait artist. The cartographer is supposed to portray the physical reality in the best possible way, but which is the best possible way? This sole question implies that there is more than one way to portray the world. It’s just that since cartographers are used to follow a certain number of conventions, we tend to think of them as natural, as if there were no alternatives. But if we did away with these conventions, it would be possible to see how much arbitrariness and ideology is contained in maps. Let’s consider some examples.

• One of these conventions could be the European centrality. Europe appears at the centre in most maps of the world. Actually, there’s no reason –other than historical and political prominence- to place Europe at the centre. Why not China, Australia or America? Or the Pacific Ocean? Having Europe at the centre and top of the map is saying a lot about western history, politics and power relationships. This consideration must have crossed somebody’s mind when the Chicago Daily Tribune published, during the peak years of the Second World War, a map with the US at the centre and top. The map was overtly entitled America–the Real Center of the World Today [map 2]. Maps of this sort are still published nowadays, mostly –of course- in the US.

• Another convention, although in a slow process of being changed by other alternatives, is the use of the Mercator projection [map 1 and 2] as a way to represent the spherical globe on a flat surface. The problem with this projection is that it distorts the relative size of regions, showing an increase in size according to the proximity to the poles. Consequently, Greenland appears to be similar in size to Africa, although the continent is thirteen times bigger than the island. The result of this projection is a world in which the territories in the northern hemisphere –closer to the pole- look bigger than those round the Equator. German historian and filmmaker Arno Peters noticed that this distortion favoured the look of the developed countries, while giving a belittled perspective of the developing ones. Thus, in 1974, he devised a new flat projection that aimed at producing a proportional map of the world [map 3]. The result –widely controversial- shows a very atypical view, with a huge, vast African continent below a small, dwarfed Europe.

© 2007, www.ODTmaps.com

• Perhaps, the most naturalized and widespread convention is the North-up orientation. There are no geographical or astronomical reasons why North must be on top and South at the bottom. However, the political and ideological implications of this arrangement can be many, mostly when most of the poor countries lie South of the developed ones. In 1979, Stuart McArthur, a ‘resentful’ Australian, published what he called McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World, showing Australia at the top and centre [map 4]. Different South-up maps have been published since then, but they have always implied an act of transgression. For us, people from the South, these maps bring a definite new perspective. How would we see the world today if we had been taught that we were on top? Doesn’t it make a difference? [map 5 -click on the map to enlarge]

© 1979, Stuart McArthur

© 2008, www.ODTmaps.com

All in all, nothing seems to be innocent. In all human productions there’s always somebody –consciously or unconsciously- expressing his values and culture. Ideology speaks through any representation of reality. Our task, I infer, would be to look at those representations critically, and to pick up for us the one that better goes with our own values and beliefs.

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[1] Jenkins, Keith (2003) Re-thinking History, Routledge, Londres.