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Decolonizing the Map: Cartography from Colony to Nation
Almost universally, newly independent states seek to affirm their independence and identity by making the production of new maps and atlases a top priority. For formerly colonized peoples, however, this process neither begins nor ends with independence, and it is rarely straightforward. Mapping their own land is fraught with a fresh set of how to define and administer their territories, develop their national identity, establish their role in the community of nations, and more. The contributors to Decolonizing the Map explore this complicated relationship between mapping and decolonization while engaging with recent theoretical debates about the nature of decolonization itself.
These essays, originally delivered as the 2010 Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, encompass more than two centuries and three continents—Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Ranging from the late eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth, contributors study topics from mapping and national identity in late colonial Mexico to the enduring complications created by the partition of British India and the racialized organization of space in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. A vital contribution to studies of both colonization and cartography, Decolonizing the Map is the first book to systematically and comprehensively examine the engagement of mapping in the long—and clearly unfinished—parallel processes of decolonization and nation building in the modern world.
These essays, originally delivered as the 2010 Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, encompass more than two centuries and three continents—Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Ranging from the late eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth, contributors study topics from mapping and national identity in late colonial Mexico to the enduring complications created by the partition of British India and the racialized organization of space in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. A vital contribution to studies of both colonization and cartography, Decolonizing the Map is the first book to systematically and comprehensively examine the engagement of mapping in the long—and clearly unfinished—parallel processes of decolonization and nation building in the modern world.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
392 pages, Hardcover
Published June 16, 2017
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February 1, 2023
Let me say that the five-star rating I gave this book comes with a huge caveat: the maps are awful. This is strange, perhaps negligent, given the subject matter of this book which is maps! Several of the maps are functionally unreadable, such as figures 4.5 and 4.9. Other maps add little to their matched essay. It is unhelpful to discuss colored lines marking this or that boundary when the maps as printed in this book are all in black and white. The maps are quite often too small for someone like me, who loves studying maps, to enjoy and to savor. Some of the points the writers make fall flat as a result of these printing problems.
I choose to stand by my rating of five stars. People like me who love maps are the problem and it is people like me who this book targets. I enjoy maps because of the information they convey, whatever information that may be whether topographical, historical, political, etc. I was before this book a passive consumer of cartography. I did not pay attention to how something was presented, only that it was presented. Nor did I pay attention to what was NOT contained in a given map. The challenge in the introduction is "to move toward an understanding of the processes at work in decolonizing the map". These backgrounds, these agendas were what I was unaware of and now with the help of these papers am much more cognizant of.
Over the course of these papers, the reader will learn what the purpose of any map is which is the conveyance of information deemed fit for condensation into a visual representation whatever that information is. The decolonization of maps means nothing without knowing what a colonization of maps means. The writers explain all of this and more quite well though the explanation of map colonization is really left to another work "The Imperial Map" thus the exploration of map colonization is really a negative exploration if one has not previously read "The Imperial Map." That is, in explaining how a newly independent people remake maps for their own needs they necessarily have to refer to how the existing maps of their day were deficient.
There is a journey, a gradual journey, taken in reading these essays that discuss countries learning and teaching about themselves across various times and continents. This is a journey worth taking and a collection of papers worth reading.
I choose to stand by my rating of five stars. People like me who love maps are the problem and it is people like me who this book targets. I enjoy maps because of the information they convey, whatever information that may be whether topographical, historical, political, etc. I was before this book a passive consumer of cartography. I did not pay attention to how something was presented, only that it was presented. Nor did I pay attention to what was NOT contained in a given map. The challenge in the introduction is "to move toward an understanding of the processes at work in decolonizing the map". These backgrounds, these agendas were what I was unaware of and now with the help of these papers am much more cognizant of.
Over the course of these papers, the reader will learn what the purpose of any map is which is the conveyance of information deemed fit for condensation into a visual representation whatever that information is. The decolonization of maps means nothing without knowing what a colonization of maps means. The writers explain all of this and more quite well though the explanation of map colonization is really left to another work "The Imperial Map" thus the exploration of map colonization is really a negative exploration if one has not previously read "The Imperial Map." That is, in explaining how a newly independent people remake maps for their own needs they necessarily have to refer to how the existing maps of their day were deficient.
There is a journey, a gradual journey, taken in reading these essays that discuss countries learning and teaching about themselves across various times and continents. This is a journey worth taking and a collection of papers worth reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review