James R. Akerman (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226422787
- eISBN:
- 9780226422817
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226422817.001.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
This volume considers consider the roles mapping has played in the passage from colony to nation—or, from dependent to independent state. The eight contributions, including a synoptic first chapter ...
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This volume considers consider the roles mapping has played in the passage from colony to nation—or, from dependent to independent state. The eight contributions, including a synoptic first chapter and seven case studies of mapping and decolonization in Latin America, Africa, and Asia from the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, concern the engagement of mapping in the long and clearly unfinished process of decolonization and the parallel process of nation building from the late eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. In general, decolonization involves practices by which colonized peoples become more engaged or reengaged in mapping their own spaces and territories. But the cartographic record shows that, in mapping their new states, decolonizing communities distinguish themselves from their former colonizers and consolidate new identities only gradually and incompletely. Drawing on examples of administrative and official cartography, iconic and propagandistic mapping, popular and educational genres, and art, the contributions to this volume show that decolonizing the map of new nation-states is never a singular process. The dominance of colonial and former colonial elites, creoles (criollos), and intermediaries in the mapping of new states is complicated by ideological conflicts, countermapping, social movements, and democratization.Less
This volume considers consider the roles mapping has played in the passage from colony to nation—or, from dependent to independent state. The eight contributions, including a synoptic first chapter and seven case studies of mapping and decolonization in Latin America, Africa, and Asia from the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, concern the engagement of mapping in the long and clearly unfinished process of decolonization and the parallel process of nation building from the late eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. In general, decolonization involves practices by which colonized peoples become more engaged or reengaged in mapping their own spaces and territories. But the cartographic record shows that, in mapping their new states, decolonizing communities distinguish themselves from their former colonizers and consolidate new identities only gradually and incompletely. Drawing on examples of administrative and official cartography, iconic and propagandistic mapping, popular and educational genres, and art, the contributions to this volume show that decolonizing the map of new nation-states is never a singular process. The dominance of colonial and former colonial elites, creoles (criollos), and intermediaries in the mapping of new states is complicated by ideological conflicts, countermapping, social movements, and democratization.
Thomas J. Bassett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226422787
- eISBN:
- 9780226422817
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226422817.003.0009
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
This paper argues that commercial road maps of South Africa do more than assist the traveler to get from one town or neighborhood to the next. They work, through their discourse function and sign ...
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This paper argues that commercial road maps of South Africa do more than assist the traveler to get from one town or neighborhood to the next. They work, through their discourse function and sign system, to create the spaces of apartheid and postapartheid society. In this way, maps produce social systems, territory, identities, and authority by normalizing power relations through their propositional character and everyday use. They perform these functions in the case of South Africa in three ways: by delimiting racialized spaces; by classifying settlements on the basis of infrastructure and services rather than by population; and by demarcating a post-apartheid political geography and ideology. The paper makes these arguments based on interviews with South African map publishers and with reference to maps made in South Africa during the apartheid and postapartheid periods. Apartheid-era road maps can be read as ideological expressions and material artifacts of internal colonialism. Despite significant continuities, postapartheid road mapping is creating a different and more inclusive territory in which identity, memory and culture intersect in a more inclusive way.Less
This paper argues that commercial road maps of South Africa do more than assist the traveler to get from one town or neighborhood to the next. They work, through their discourse function and sign system, to create the spaces of apartheid and postapartheid society. In this way, maps produce social systems, territory, identities, and authority by normalizing power relations through their propositional character and everyday use. They perform these functions in the case of South Africa in three ways: by delimiting racialized spaces; by classifying settlements on the basis of infrastructure and services rather than by population; and by demarcating a post-apartheid political geography and ideology. The paper makes these arguments based on interviews with South African map publishers and with reference to maps made in South Africa during the apartheid and postapartheid periods. Apartheid-era road maps can be read as ideological expressions and material artifacts of internal colonialism. Despite significant continuities, postapartheid road mapping is creating a different and more inclusive territory in which identity, memory and culture intersect in a more inclusive way.
