-
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, Vol. 11, No. 2, March 1992,127-129
Editorial comment Politics in maps, maps in politics:
A tribute to Brian Harley
Cartography dtploys its vocabulary so that it embodies a
systematic social inequality 7Ybe dkxinctions of ckzs and power are
engineered, reified and legitimated in the map by means of
cartogr~bic signs. %e rule seems to be Se more powerful, the more
prominent. To those who have strength in the world shall be added
the strength of the map.
BRIAN HARLEY (1989)
Despite the centrality of maps to the theory and practice of
political geography, we have as a subdiscipline been neglectful of
our critical duties towards the products of cartography. To be sure
there are many exceptions to this assertion, most notably in our
studies of propaganda maps, but there has been no sustained effort
to understand the meaning of maps for the political processes we
research. Fortunately, this task has been started for us in recent
studies of the history of cartography. The leading scholar in this
field has been Brian Harley who died unexpectedly in December 1991.
This short comment is a political geography tribute to a small part
of Brians lifes work on understanding maps. I concentrate on his
very important recent work revealing the politics of
cartography.
There is a battle going on in cartography and Brian Harleys work
is at the centre of it. This most scientific corner of our
geographical studies has been accused of being innately
political-the quotation above gives the flavour of Harleys
argument. The particular article from which this quotation is drawn
immediately brought forth a torrent of comment consisting of eleven
responses in the next issue of Curtogrupbia. This level of concern
is due to the fundamental nature of Harleys challenge to
established cartographic lore. Harley begins his attack with the
most basic question: What is a map?. Surely it is a representation
of reality, a mirror of our world as cartographers are apt to
claim. Harley (1989: 1) starts from the premise that cartography is
seldom what cartographers say it is. Instead a postmodern critique
is offered where the map is either a text to be deconstructed or a
discourse in which knowledge as power is to be revealed. Some
familiar and some less familiar ideas are brought together to
provide a new meaning for the maps we are apt to use so
unproblematically. For all their technological input, maps will
always be social creations and like all such phenomena they cannot
escape the social relations that enable their production. For
instance, Harley identifies two rules of cartography that are never
mentioned in the textbooks of the discipline. The rule of
ethnocentricity means that we can identify the historical society
in which a map is produced by simply looking at the maps centre:
for example, the Greenwich meridian as 0 longitude is a fine
epitaph for British hegemony. The rule of social orders produces a
hierarchicalization of space reflecting the social order: for
example, the popularity of the Peters projection, which explicitly
breaks this unwritten rule, produced among cartographers what
Harley (1991: 5) terms hysteria. But let us look at Harleys work in
more detail: two arguments seem particularly pertinent to political
geography.
0962-6298/l l/O2 0127-03 0 1992 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
-
128
Nonplaces: the silence of maps
Editorial comment
Harley argues that the nature of maps is revealed as much by
what is omitted as by what they contain. The cartographic silences
that interest him are not those due to technical limitations such
as lack of data butpolitical silences (Harley, 1988a: 58). Such
silences take two forms, intentional and unintentional. Political
geographers are familiar with the former especially in terms of
strategic secrecy. For instance, the most famous white space on
British Ordnance Survey maps is the 619-feet London landmark the
Telecom tower! Harley also discusses commercial secrecy as a cause
of cartographic silence. But the key contribution Harley makes for
political geography is in his discussion of unintentional
silences.
For Harley (1989: 6) maps as text provide as much a commentary
on the social structure of a particular nation or place as on its
topography. Most of Harleys examples are drawn from early modern
Europe but he provides contemporary salience with his silence of
the cartographers city (Harley, 1990: 5) where one looks in vain
for the social crises of the reality the map purports to represent.
Throughout the cities of the world, maps omit the shantytowns,
bidonvilles, black townships, public-housing projects and council
estates as nonplaces revealing their irrelevance to the public eye.
This point was brought home to me forcefully recently during
Britains 1991 urban riots. Suddenly Meadowell estate on Tyneside
was emblazoned across the headlines of the countrys media. But
where exactly is Meadowell? It would be no use turning to published
maps, either Ordnance Survey or commercial street maps, for
Meadowell is a cartographic nonplace. This silence is just as
expressive of political power as are the intentional silences
political geographers study on propaganda maps.
Places into spaces: maps as authoritarian images
Maps are implicated in the exercise of power as political
geographers are well aware. Hence, as well as the power exerted on
cartography as described above, power is also exercised with
cartography. Mapping has been a function of the state in the modern
world and has had important roles in imperial expansion, military
campaigns and much else besides (Harley, 198813). But power with
the help of maps is only part of the story. As well as this
external power there is power interval to cartography (Harley,
1989: 13). Maps themselves have political effects; in their work,
cartographers manufacture power. For Harley power is embedded in
the map and we should talk about the power of the map just as we
already talk about the power of the word (Harley, 1989: 13). In the
process of mapmaking the world is catalogued to normalize its
variety, producing a disciplined space in which sense of place is
eradicated.
Political geographers are familiar with politics in maps but far
less so with maps in politics. Hence here is a second important
area of research Harley opens up for us. By turning places into
uniform spaces the landscape is dehumanized. With all places deemed
to be the same, we can progress with scientific planning-be it
physical, social, economic or military-in a space that is a
socially-empty commodity, a geometrical landscape of cold,
non-human facts (Harley, 1988a: 66). (This was written before the
GulfWar provided a horrifying example through the world medias
illustration of how to desocialize places on maps in preparation
for battle.) In this argument the traditional cartographic claims
of objectivity and neutrality are masks that enhance the power of
the map. It hides and denies its social dimensions at the same time
as it legitimates (Harley, 1989: 7). No wonder Harley (1989: 14) is
drawn to claim Maps are authoritarian images-the result of what
he
-
Editorial comment 129
identifies as the essential paradox of modern cartography: As
cartography became more objective through the states patronage, so
it was also imprisoned by a different subjectivity, that inherent
in its replication of the states dominant ideology (Harley, 1988:
71).
Brian Harleys career was spent contributing to the history of
cartography: he would never have considered himself a political
geographer. Nevertheless, I hope I have illustrated here the
salience of Brians work for our project. It is a sign of these
times that are so multidisciplinary that we can pay tribute to a
nonpolitical geographer who leaves behind a political geography
legacy for us to follow.
PETER J. TAYLOR
References
HARLEY, J B. (1988a). Silences and secrecy the hidden agenda of
cartography in early modern Europe. Imqgo Mundi 40, 57-76.
HAREY, J. B. (198%). Maps, knowledge and power. In 7??e
Iconog?zzp@ of Landsc@e (D. Cosgrove and P Daniels eds) pp.
277-312. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
HARLR. J B. (1989). Deconstructing the map. Canographia 26,
l-20. HARLN, J. B. (1990). Cartography, ethics and social theory
Cu~og?q&~la 27, l-23
