Decolonizing The Map

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 issues: 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.

Almost universally, newly independent states make the production of new maps and atlases affirming their independence and identity a top priority, but the processes and practices by which previously colonized peoples become more engaged or re-engaged in mapping their own territories are rarely straightforward. This collection explores the relationship between mapping and decolonization while engaging recent theoretical debates about the nature of decolonization itself. The essays, originally delivered as the 2010 Kenneth Nebenzahl Jr. Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, encompass more than two centuries (from the late eighteenth through the twentieth) and three continents (Latin America, Africa, and Asia). Topics range from mapping and national identity in late colonial Mexico to the enduring crisis created by the partition of British India and the persistence of racial prejudices and the racialized organization of space in apartheid and postapartheid South Africa.

Decolonizing Data yields valuable insights into the decolonization of research methods by addressing and examining health inequalities from an anti-racist and anti-oppressive standpoint.

Interdisciplinary Measures makes the case for a cross-disciplinary, but literature-centred, approach to postcolonial studies. Despite the anxieties that interdisciplinarity brings with it, a combination of different, discontinuously structured disciplinary knowledges is arguably best suited to address the tangled concerns of both the globalised present and the colonial past. The book looks specifically at the intersections between literary criticism, history, anthropology, geography and environmental studies, while arguing more specifically for a postcolonialism across the disciplines in the service of informed (cross-) cultural critique. Bringing together a wide range of literary material from Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, New Zealand and South Asia, the book also considers the different, but sometimes related, cultural contexts within which the key debates in postcolonial studies – e.g. those around globalisation, North-South relations and the new imperialism – are currently taking place. These debates suggest the need for a multi-sited, multilinguistic and, not least, multidisciplinary appraoch to postcolonial studies that consolidates its status as a comparative field.

Since that ancient day when the first human drew a line connecting Point A to Point B, maps have been understood as one of the most essential tools of communication. Despite differences in language, appearance, or culture, maps are universal touchstones in human civilization. Over the centuries, maps have served many varied purposes; far from mere guides for reaching a destination, they are unique artistic forms, aides in planning commercial routes, literary devices for illuminating a story. Accuracy—or inaccuracy—of maps has been the make-or-break factor in countless military battles throughout history. They have graced the walls of homes, bringing prestige and elegance to their owners. They track the mountains, oceans, and stars of our existence. Maps help us make sense of our worlds both real and imaginary—they bring order to the seeming chaos of our surroundings. With The Curious Map Book, Ashley Baynton-Williams gathers an amazing, chronologically ordered variety of cartographic gems, mainly from the vast collection of the British Library. He has unearthed a wide array of the whimsical and fantastic, from maps of board games to political ones, maps of the Holy Land to maps of the human soul. In his illuminating introduction, Baynton-Williams also identifies and expounds upon key themes of map production, peculiar styles, and the commerce and collection of unique maps. This incredible volume offers a wealth of gorgeous illustrations for anyone who is cartographically curious.

Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives on education have long persisted alongside colonial models of education, yet too often have been subsumed within the fields of multiculturalism, critical race theory, and progressive education. Timely and compelling, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education features research, theory, and dynamic foundational readings for educators and educational researchers who are looking for possibilities beyond the limits of liberal democratic schooling. Featuring original chapters by authors at the forefront of theorizing, practice, research, and activism, this volume helps define and imagine the exciting interstices between Indigenous and decolonizing studies and education. Each chapter forwards Indigenous principles - such as Land as literacy and water as life - that are grounded in place-specific efforts of creating Indigenous universities and schools, community organizing and social movements, trans and Two Spirit practices, refusals of state policies, and land-based and water-based pedagogies.

Maps organize us in space, but they also organize us in time. Looking around the world for the last five hundred years, Time in Maps shows that today’s digital maps are only the latest effort to insert a sense of time into the spatial medium of maps. Historians Kären Wigen and Caroline Winterer have assembled leading scholars to consider how maps from all over the world have depicted time in ingenious and provocative ways. Focusing on maps created in Spanish America, Europe, the United States, and Asia, these essays take us from the Aztecs documenting the founding of Tenochtitlan, to early modern Japanese reconstructing nostalgic landscapes before Western encroachments, to nineteenth-century Americans grappling with the new concept of deep time. The book also features a defense of traditional paper maps by digital mapmaker William Rankin. With more than one hundred color maps and illustrations, Time in Maps will draw the attention of anyone interested in cartographic history.

Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized representations. Our maps and, more generally, our representations seduce and persuade; they build and destroy. They are the ultimate record of empires and of our evolving comprehension of our world. This book is about the promises and perils of map thinking. Maps are purpose-driven abstractions, discarding detail to highlight only particular features of a territory. By preserving certain features at the expense of others, they can be used to reinforce a privileged position. When Maps Become the World shows us how the scientific theories, models, and concepts we use to intervene in the world function as maps, and explores the consequences of this, both good and bad. We increasingly understand the world around us in terms of models, to the extent that we often take the models for reality. Winther explains how in time, our historical representations in science, in cartography, and in our stories about ourselves replace individual memories and become dominant social narratives—they become reality, and they can remake the world.