Geo: 707

Priyanka Ghosh
12/10/2007
The Power of Maps

Every map has its own power. But we rarely think about it that maps are constructed by

cartographers, who draw the maps to project some underlying purpose. Maps produce knowledge

but this knowledge is not naïve. We trust maps. When we see a map we think we are seeing a

reality. But we can never imagine that what we see on maps could be a manipulated reality. The

maps let us see the world around us what others want us to see. Therefore maps represent

selective group interest. Denis Wood has called this “interested selectivity”. The power of maps

has often been used to claim territory, to shape public opinion and to build national pride. Maps

have been often used as weapons of imperialism, exploration and expansion of territory.

Cartographers are aware of the power of maps and its function. They have recognized that this

power functions through selection of certain features while omitting others. They are also aware

about the close association between maps and military, maps, state and commercial interest.

Regarding power of maps Brian Harley says:

Cartographers manufacture power. They create a spatial panopticon. It is a power embedded in

the map text. We can talk about the power of the map just as we already talk of the power of the

word or about the book as a force for change. In this sense, maps have politics. It is a power that

intersects and is embedded in knowledge. It is universal.

“Are maps instruments of power?” Yes, they are the instruments of power. They are powerful

enough to influence our interpretation about space and the phenomena within that space. This

power remains on the hand of cartographers or mapmakers when they decide to represent the

three dimensional earth on a two dimensional flat sheet of paper. Therefore the power that maps

exert on others (target group) depends on the objective of the mapmakers. It also depends on the
communicative language of the cartographer and which aspects e.g. political, ethnic, religious,

cultural etc. of a given space he or she wants to portray. Harley has talked about the external and

internal power of cartography. He thinks that external power is that power which is exerted on

cartography by the producers of maps. Thus the world maps produced in 1960’s in United

Kingdom showed the “extent of British Empire in red spread over a third of the globe”. This

shows the interest of mapmakers “reflecting a view of the extent of British dominion,

notwithstanding that by the 1960s many countries were sovereign states”. The concept of internal

power is such power which provides access to other powers. According to Harley it is the

potential power of cartographers to manufacture power through cartographic process. This

process of manufacturing power becomes more successful when cartographers are associated

with governmental institutions, universities or renowned companies or organizations. Thus if

National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization which is under the Department of Science

and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India produces tourist

maps of India, showing northwestern Kashmir as a part of India, that would be more credible to

common people. On the other hand Pakistan also denies the political reality by including the

entire Kashmir in the territory of Pakistan. For instance in 1984 Pakistan Government published

a tourist map including Kashmir in its territory.

To support my viewpoint that maps have power I would like to draw some examples that how

maps function as powerful tools. In my attempt to do so, I would like to discuss about cadastral

maps which are powerful tools of governmental intervention in people’s lives. In online

Wikipedia, the definition of the cadastral maps and the cadastre are very interesting in this

context. The definitions reflect the power of cadastral maps as an instrument of recording

territory owned by people of any country. Wikipedia defines that “a cadastral map is a map

showing the boundaries and ownership of land parcels”. To define a cadastre the Wikipedia says
that “A cadastre (also spelled cadaster) is a comprehensive register of the real property of a

country, and commonly includes details of the ownership, the tenure, the precise location, the

dimensions (and area) and the value of individual parcels of land”. During the sixteenth and

seventeenth century the involvement of cadastral maps in tax reform and accurate recording of

public property increased. The proliferation of cadastral mapping can be explained in this way

that when rival claimants on private land increased and when friction increased among existing

and new users of common lands for commercial purposes, the cadastral maps became effective

legal instruments to solve certain disputes regarding land ownerships. Examples can be drawn

from Netherlands where ‘expansion in the production and use of printed cadastral maps in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was directly related to’ Dutch mercantile and imperial

expansion.

Geography has long been associated with colonialization and empire building. Cartography is the

language of geography and maps are the tools of geographers for spatial representation.

Cartography has a deeper involvement in imperialism and colonialization. Since early Greek and

Roman Empire to contemporary, maps have played a crucial role in the ‘politics of power’ and

surveillance of the state. Thus “British world maps put Britain in the middle, not for ‘scientific’

reasons but to demonstrate British supremacy”.

Maps have long been served the purpose of the colonizers (Europeans) to invade the lands of

tropics by creating enough justification that these lands were unused before their invasion. Thus

the British applied the idea of “terra nullius” (empty land) to occupy the land of Aboriginals in

Australia and subsequent omission of Aboriginal interests from maps produced by them helped

their robust project of colonialism.

The power of maps can be explicated more if we consider the propaganda maps, the aim of

which is to persuade people to believe something according to the propagandists. Therefore the
objective of propaganda maps is how to shape public opinion by the tactics of manipulation.

John Pickles in his book A History of Spaces: Cartographic reason, mapping and the geo-coded

world states that “Propaganda techniques are, then techniques of persuasion that may fail to

abide by the established and accepted norms of accuracy and truth.” Actually they have immense

visual impact to convince people. Though some scholars differentiate between scientific

cartography and persuasive cartography under which propaganda maps fall, the distinction

between two is hard to define. Maps have played varied and versatile role in political

propaganda. Maps function as icons of power, authority and national pride. Mark Monmonier in

his book “How to Lie with Maps” comments that “the map is the perfect symbol of the state.” To

support his comment he has drawn examples of the national atlases of England and France

produced in the late sixteenth century. The national atlas of England conveys information about

governance of the kingdom controlled by Elizabeth I and represented the queen ‘as a patron of

geography and astronomy’. Similar type of atlas was produced in France under the rule of Henry

IV admitting the glory of king and his kingdom.

Sometimes postal stamps can serve the purpose for political propaganda and thus try to send a

different message to the users than reality. It would be interesting that how Argentina claims not

only the Falkland Islands but also the Antarctica within its domain. Like other official maps these

postal stamps of Argentina refuse British occupation in the Falkland Island or Islas Malvinas.

The picture of the Argentinean postal stamps on the next page clearly shows that the maps have

power to advertise, to send a different message than reality and to claim territory.
 Propaganda Maps on Argentinean Postage Stamps

The discussion of power of maps would be incomplete if I don’t consider the power of different

projections having capacity to look bigger or smaller according to the objective. Mercator

Projection is such an example. In this projection exaggeration of scale occurs if we move from

Equator towards Pole. Thus Russia (previously USSR) looks huge if its landmass is shaded on a

world map using Mercator Projection and it could be threatening to other nations. British always

loved Mercator Projection as it flattens the British Empire with its far-off colonies in Australia,

Canada and South Africa. Mercator Projection has long been served the structure for world maps

in the classrooms in the 19th and early 20th century. It has been popular in western world as it

diminishes the importance of tropical countries to the advantage of Canada, Western Europe,

Siberia and even United States.

It is also interesting that how cartographers have used equal area projection to criticize Mercator

Projection by claiming that world map drawn on equal area projection is more accurate, “more

egalitarian” in terms of representation of the world. In this context Arno Peter’s world map on
Gall-Peters projection could be mentioned that received immense acceptance from ‘religious and

international development organizations’ like World Council of churches, the Lutheran Church of

America, and United Nation.

The examples regarding power of maps would be more limited if I don’t mention about the

propaganda maps made by Nazi regime around the time of Second World War to represent

Germany tiny in size compared to British Empire. The hidden objective was to resist America’s

entry in to the World War II.

Scholars like Judith Tyner has made distinction between propaganda, advertising, and subjective

maps and scientific, objective maps by including former under the category of “persuasive

cartography”. In reality I think the distinction between persuasive cartography and other forms of

cartography cannot be made. I support the argument of Ager (1977) who pointed out that “in

reality there is not a clear division between “Propaganda” cartographers and “Perfect”

cartographers, but both are at opposite ends of a spectrum in which all cartographers fall, and

their positions vary in accordance with the production of each map.”

Today cartographers are engaged with deconstruction of existing cartography and argue for an

“alternative cartography” which can be used more democratically. Maps are social construction

and cartography can be implemented in mapping for powerless people for social benefits. Today

emergence of humanistic cartography is posing a challenge to age-old conventional cartography

as an alternative method of cartography. The focus is more on people instead of land. No doubt

mapping of people and their varied aspects are more complex than mapping of land ownership or

mapping of navigational routes in favor of state.

References:
Dorling Daniel. and Fairbairn David. 1997. Mapping: Ways of Representing The World. England.

Addison Wesley Longman Limited.

Monmonier Mark. 1991. How to Lie with Maps. Chicago and London.The University of Chicago

Press.

Pickles J. 2004. A History of Spaces: Cartographic reason, mapping and the geo-coded world.

London and New York. Routledge.

Richards N. 1999. Maps: Are They Instruments of Power?

http://www.socsci.flinders.edu.au/geog/geos/richards.htm (Last accessed 10 December 2007).