Ok, so I just finished reading "Maps, Knowledge, & Power" by Harley and "Mapping the Digital Empire" by Farman and I must say, while many of the points made are thought provoking, it can be difficult to sift through such dense texts, especially when the subject matter is so ephemeral, but thats just me.
As a follow up to the reading, we are asked to find two examples, one physical the other digital, where social distortions of maps occur. The task is difficult, since very little that is physical is not digital so I can only assume such a crossover does not disqualify my example.
First, the digital realm. I believe Farman has the best points, since today, the majority of maps are digital and as such have a different place in the mindset of the most recent generations. The permanence subconsciously afforded to a GIS like Google Earth makes distortion of maps hard to find. One interesting distortion occurred 15 years ago, when time zones in Windows 95 showed a disputed region between India and Pakistan as belonging to the latter. Each country claimed the land and had its own time zone for it, forcing Windows to modify their software from country timezones to region timezones. A similar example occurred between Peru and Ecuador and between Taiwan and China. While Microsoft was attempting to accurately keep time worldwide, social forces created a change in the software.
A physical realm of map distortion lies within politics. The placement of political lines, divvying up different geographical areas, is often one of enormous contention. A carefully placed district line can separate voting groups, effectively changing the worth of a single voter. Imagine that somehow, a candidate could take all voters likely to vote against him and place them into a single district. That district would only be one of many, and the candidate would take office. While forcible relocation is not currently in most politicians play books (hopefully) the idea is the same.
Where a line is drawn can have important, real world ramifications, despite the seeming immutable nature of current day maps.
Both these examples were so different then things I thought about! Really opened my eyes.
ReplyDeleteSuch as even though technically the time zones were the same, the countries wanted to be separate - funny cause it was distorted due to countries wanting to be independent from the other.
While your politics map was very different too. However I would love an example if you have pictures! This district idea and example you gave was really good though, really puts my mind into a new perspective.