Critical Cartography 1AC – Draft 1acs in this file are drafts, will be completed by teams reading this argument and

released as soon as completed. There will definitely be a neg supplement and

probably and aff one as well.

Contention One

SQ exploration begins from landed geographic spaces locking in marginalization of the

Earth’s oceans

Anderson, Senior Lecturer Human Geography, University of Cardiff and Peters,

Lecturer Human Geography, Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

Accordingly, within human geography, greater interest has been paid to the land: to cities, towns,

streets, homes, work places, leisure centres, schools – the places which are seen to be crucial to our

everyday existence (Peters 2010: 1263). Furthermore, according to Steinberg, the marginalization of

the maritime world is further compounded due to difficulties researchers face in accessing areas of

the sea which are inhospitable, detached from the shore, physically unstable and immensely deep

(1999a: 372). This inaccessibility has resulted in a vision of water worlds, projected by scholars, artists

and writers, which is abstracted and distanced from reality. As Steinberg puts it, ‘the partial nature of

our encounters with the ocean necessarily creates gaps’ in how the ocean is understood (2013: 157).

Consequently, the physical liveliness of oceans and seas are often reduced to romantic metaphors in

paintings, novels and other literary and art sources. Together, these reasons have resulted in a largely

‘landlocked’ discipline (Lambert et al. 2006: 480). However, over the past decade, geographical

research has cast off its terrestrial focus and has begun to voyage towards new, watery horizons. This

book brings together scholars concerned with the manifold human geographies of the sea, acting as a

first ‘port of call’ for those interested in taking research offshore, as well as offering exciting new

theoretical and empirical interventions in thinking about our water world. This book contends, along

with Lambert el al (2006), that water worlds must move from the margins of geographical

consciousness and inquiry (see also Peters 2010, Steinberg 1999a, 1999b, 2001). This means, to echo

Steinberg in the Foreword to this volume that we must not simply study the seas and oceans as ‘other’

or ‘different’ spaces; but instead start thinking from the water. With this in mind, this book aims to

chart new representations, understandings and experiences of the sea, plotting water worlds that are

more than a ‘perfect and absolute blank’.

Status quo geographical processes focus on the empirics of ocean and exploit it for

human use

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2001

[Philip E., The Social Construction of the Ocean, page 10, Google books, PAC]

Most recently, the International Geographical Union launched its OCEANS program, dedicated to

holistic study of the ocean as an integrated system (Vallega 1999; Vallega el nl. 1998), The Geographical

Review (1999) devoted an issue to the Oceans Connect program which is built around the idea that

oceans define world regions rather than divide them, and The Professional Geographer (1999) devoted

a focus section to the geography of ocean-space wherein it is urged that the social and physical

aspects of the sea be analyzed with reference to each other and to the land-based processes that

interact with marine phenomena.

Nonetheless, despite the past and present significance of the world-ocean to modern society, and

despite these calls for a holistic geographical accounting of human interactions with the sea, relatively

little research has been conducted on the historical geography of the ocean as a space that, like land,

shapes and is shaped by social and physical processes. Within the discipline of geography per se, most

marine research has been of an empirical and applied nature (for reviews, see Psuty et nl. 2002;

Steinberg 1999d; West 1989). Within the social sciences more generally, the bulk of research has

focused on one or another use of the marine environment, but not on the ocean as an integrated

space that is a product of - as well as a resource for - a variety of human uses. Following a review of

traditional perspectives on the ocean, this chapter presents a territorial political economy approach for

analyzing the geography of ocean-space.

Our social constructions of the ocean – implications include viewing the ocean as

something to be exploited rather than explored

McAteer, web editor intern with international human rights NGO, Front Line

Defenders 13

(Christopher, 3/8/13, “Social Constructions of the Artic Ocean-Space”,

http://www.christophermcateer.com/2013/03/08/the-social-constructions-of-arctic-ocean-space/,

accessed 6/29/14) NM

In The Social Construction of the Ocean, Steinberg considers there to be three major social

constructions of ocean-space throughout history: A great void; Land-like; and a placeless force-field.

These are social constructions in that they arise from the manner in which the ocean is actually used

by societal units. These social constructions are derived from three discursive constructions:

Development; Geopolitical; and Legal. The development construction considers, “the sea as a space

devoid of potential for growth and civilization” (Steinberg 2001, 35). The geopolitical construction sees

the sea as an area that is external to the territory of political society, which is complimented by the

legal construction, which considers, “the sea as immune to social control and order” (Steinberg 2001,

36). Steinberg states that the great void construction of the ocean considers the ocean to be a

separating space which is immune from state power and is to be traversed. He makes an allusion to

the Indian Ocean circa 500B.C.-C.E 1500: “Societies of the Indian Ocean viewed the sea as a source of

imported goods, but the sea itself was perceived as a space apart from society, an untameable

mystery” (Steinberg 2001, 45). He asserts that, in the great void construction, territory ends at the

shore and that the sea cannot be bounded or possessed, it can merely be conceived as a vast and

dangerous expanse that may be used for transport: “The sea was perceived as distance, not territory”

(Steinberg 2001, 52). The land-like social construction views the ocean as a resource which can be used

in everyday life. It is a resource of food and connection and, being an integral part of everyday life, is

suitable for territorial claims and exertions of power. Steinberg believes this model to fit with the

interaction of society and ocean-space seen in Micronesia up until recent times. He claims that, “For the

Micronesias, the ocean is seen primarily as a resource provider, divided into distinct places, much as

continental residents view their land-space” (Steinberg 2001, 52-3). In this construction the ocean is

viewed as one may view a highway: it did not divide societies within Micronesia, but rather connect

them and was a fundamental part of common heritage and daily experience. Steinberg’s third social

construction of ocean-space is that of a placeless force-field. This is a construction that holds ocean-

space as an arena of competition and potential militarism. Societal units vie for power on land, using

the ocean as a buffer against potential threat, separating potentially rebellious colonized areas from

the hegemonic base of a single, strong empire. What is sought is not control of the ocean, which is not

viewed as land-like, but rather stewardship. The historical ocean-space that Steinberg draws on here is

the Mediterranean Sea, particularly during the Roman period (c. 300 B.C.-C.E.500). The ocean-space

construction in this model sits somewhere between a freedom/enclosure dichotomy: “Rome

constructed the Mediterranean as a “force-field,” a placeless surface that belonged to no one but

upon which powerful states could intervene do as to steward its resources for the national interest.

The placeless force-field construction is perhaps the closest of the three to the manner in which UNCLOS

seems to consider ocean-space, particularly with regards to EEZs: “Within an EEZ… a coastal state may

claim policing rights, but not full sovereign authority, in the interest of stewarding the zone’s living

and non-living resources” (Steinberg 1999, 261). It is also similar to the position the US has taken with

regards to the world’s oceans since the Second World War. On the other hand, the great void

construction also seems to exist to a degree today, particularly within the mechanisms of postmodern

capitalism. Steinberg states that, “With the *postmodern capitalist+ era’s emphasis on movement and

speed, the dominant element of postmodern capitalism’s ocean-space construction is a continuation

of the great void ideal that characterized the industrial capitalist era” (Steinberg 2001, 164).

Status quo geographers view the ocean as ontologically distinct from human society

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2009

*Philip E., “Oceans,” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography,

http://philsteinberg.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/iehg.pdf, accessed 6/27/14 JO]

The ocean has failed to attract attention from more than a handful of human geographers for three

likely reasons: first, despite the fact that geographers have long critiqued the idealization of the state

as a naturally occurring, organic entity, geographers (and, more generally, social scientists) still have

tended to conceive of the world as a universe of state territories. As a space that lies primarily

external to the territory or sovereign authority of individual states, the ocean thus has appeared as a

space that is external to the space-creating processes of society.

Second, human geographers (and, again, social scientists more generally) have tended to view societies

as occurring in place. Key social activities, such as production, reproduction, and consumption, as well

as the cultural forms that support these activities, traditionally, have been associated with discrete

places or territories. Movement typically has been viewed as a derivative activity that occurs simply

because an individual or a commodity requires relocation from one society-place to another, and little

attention, therefore, has been directed toward the spaces across which this movement occurs. Thus,

notwithstanding the ocean's substantial economic value as the space across which the bulk of the

world's commerce flows, it has received little attention from human geographers.

Third, human geographers traditionally have viewed nature as ontologically distinct from society.

Although geographers have long focused on the intersection between nature and society (examining,

for instance, the way in which a places nature and its society impact each other), this emphasis on the

intersection between nature and society has tended to direct human geographers’ attention away

from spaces of nature that fail to display a clear human presence. Thus, as a space that is without

permanent human habitation and that long was thought to be immune to human impact, the ocean

typically has escaped the attention of human geographers who study nature-society relations.

Understanding the politics behind mapping is necessary to avoid the environmental

neglect of “un-mappable” areas—The ocean is disproportionately affected

Harris, University of Wisconsin Geography department professor, and Hazen,

University of Minnesota Geography professor, 2006

*Leila M. and Helen D., “Power of Maps: (Counter) Mapping for Conservation,” ACME: An International

E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, page 99-129, JO]

Which areas are preferentially selected for protection is not only a function of cultural or economic

imperatives, but may also be influenced by the relative ‘mappability’ of different areas. For instance,

grasslands are not only considered less ‘majestic’ than other landscapes (see discussion in Cronon,

1995), but are also less definable in carto-geographic terms than, for example, a lake or an island, and

may therefore be neglected by conservation designations. The preference for the protection of forest

over dry land and grassland ecosystems that can be seen at the global scale (Hazen and Anthamatten,

2004) may also be, in part, a reflection of the fact that forests are often a ‘mapped’ feature, whereas

grasslands and dry lands are invisible on all but the most specialized of maps.8 As yet another example

of the importance of ‘mappability,’ consider the frequency with which jurisdictional boundaries define

at least one edge of a protected area. In such cases, the already mapped boundaries of contemporary

states act to delimit protected area boundaries, discouraging planners from using less easily

"mappable" boundaries in making their decisions. As a result, most protected areas remain limited to

the confines of just one political state, although the number of ‘transboundary protected areas’ is on

the rise (Zimmerer et al., 2004). Finally, the case of marine ecosystems is also notable in this respect,

with data limitations, mobile features, and other considerations contributing to the difficulty of

mapping and managing oceans (see Steinberg, 2001). This perhaps helps to explain why marine

ecosystems have not seen the same proliferation of protected areas over the past twenty years that

has occurred in terrestrial areas. While nearly seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by

ocean, in 1997 less than 20% of global protected areas included marine ecosystems (UNEP 2005).

Ecological crisis

Darder, Professor of Education, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign 10

(Antonia Darder, “Preface” in Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, & Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy

Movement by Richard V. Kahn, 2010, pp. x-xiii)

It is fitting to begin my words about Richard Kahn’s Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis:

The Ecopedagogy Movement with a poem. The direct and succinct message of The Great Mother Wails

cuts through our theorizing and opens us up to the very heart of the book’s message—to ignite a fire

that speaks to the ecological crisis at hand; a crisis orchestrated by the inhumane greed and economic

brutality of the wealthy. Nevertheless, as is clearly apparent, none of us is absolved from complicity

with the devastating destruction of the earth. As members of the global community, we are all

implicated in this destruction by the very manner in which we define ourselves, each other, and all

living beings with whom we reside on the earth.

Everywhere we look there are glaring signs of political systems and social structures that propel us

toward unsustainability and extinction. In this historical moment, the planet faces some of the most

horrendous forms of “man-made” devastation ever known to humankind. Cataclysmic “natural

disasters” in the last decade have sung the environmental hymns of planetary imbalance and reckless

environmental disregard. A striking feature of this ecological crisis, both locally and globally, is the

overwhelming concentration of wealth held by the ruling elite and their agents of capital. This

environmental malaise is characterized by the staggering loss of livelihood among working people

everywhere; gross inequalities in educational opportunities; an absence of health care for millions; an

unprecedented number of people living behind bars; and trillions spent on fabricated wars

fundamentally tied to the control and domination of the planet’s resources.

The Western ethos of mastery and supremacy over nature has accompanied, to our detriment, the

unrelenting expansion of capitalism and its unparalleled domination over all aspects of human life.

This hegemonic worldview has been unmercifully imparted through a host of public policies and

practices that conveniently gloss over gross inequalities as commonsensical necessities for democracy

to bloom. As a consequence, the liberal democratic rhetoric of “we are all created equal” hardly begins

to touch the international pervasiveness of racism, patriarchy, technocracy, and economic piracy by the

West, all which have fostered the erosion of civil rights and the unprecedented ecological exploitation

of societies, creating conditions that now threaten our peril, if we do not reverse directions.

Cataclysmic disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, are unfortunate testimonies to the danger of ignoring

the warnings of the natural world, especially when coupled with egregious governmental neglect of

impoverished people. Equally disturbing, is the manner in which ecological crisis is vulgarly exploited by

unscrupulous and ruthless capitalists who see no problem with turning a profit off the backs of ailing

and mourning oppressed populations of every species—whether they be victims of weather disasters,

catastrophic illnesses, industrial pollution, or inhumane practices of incarceration. Ultimately, these

constitute ecological calamities that speak to the inhumanity and tyranny of material profiteering, at the

expense of precious life.

The arrogance and exploitation of neoliberal values of consumption dishonor the contemporary

suffering of poor and marginalized populations around the globe. Neoliberalism denies or simply mocks

(“Drill baby drill!”) the interrelationship and delicate balance that exists between all living beings,

including the body earth. In its stead, values of individualism, competition, privatization, and the “free

market” systematically debase the ancient ecological knowledge of indigenous populations, who have,

implicitly or explicitly, rejected the fabricated ethos of “progress and democracy” propagated by the

West. In its consuming frenzy to gobble up the natural resources of the planet for its own hyperbolic

quest for material domination, the exploitative nature of capitalism and its burgeoning technocracy

has dangerously deepened the structures of social exclusion, through the destruction of the very

biodiversity that has been key to our global survival for millennia.

Kahn insists that this devastation of all species and the planet must be fully recognized and soberly

critiqued. But he does not stop there. Alongside, he rightly argues for political principles of engagement

for the construction of a critical ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy that is founded on economic

redistribution, cultural and linguistic democracy, indigenous sovereignty, universal human rights, and a

fundamental respect for all life. As such, Kahn seeks to bring us all back to a formidable relationship with

the earth, one that is unquestionably rooted in an integral order of knowledge, imbued with physical,

emotional, intellectual, and spiritual wisdom. Within the context of such an ecologically grounded

epistemology, Kahn uncompromisingly argues that our organic relationship with the earth is also

intimately tied to our struggles for cultural self-determination, environmental sustainability, social and

material justice, and global peace.

Through a carefully framed analysis of past disasters and current ecological crisis, Kahn issues an urgent

call for a critical ecopedagogy that makes central explicit articulations of the ways in which societies

construct ideological, political, and cultural systems, based on social structures and practices that can

serve to promote ecological sustainability and biodiversity or, conversely, lead us down a disastrous

path of unsustainability and extinction. In making his case, Kahn provides a grounded examination of

the manner in which consuming capitalism manifests its repressive force throughout the globe,

disrupting the very ecological order of knowledge essential to the planet’s sustainability. He offers an

understanding of critical ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy that inherently critiques the history of Western

civilization and the anthropomorphic assumptions that sustain patriarchy and the subjugation of all

subordinated living beings—assumptions that continue to inform traditional education discourses

around the world. Kahn incisively demonstrates how a theory of multiple technoliteracies can be used to

effectively critique the ecological corruption and destruction behind mainstream uses of technology and

the media in the interest of the neoliberal marketplace. As such, his work points to the manner in which

the sustainability rhetoric of mainstream environmentalism actually camouflages wretched neoliberal

policies and practices that left unchecked hasten the annihilation of the globe’s ecosystem.

True to its promise, the book cautions that any anti-hegemonic resistance movement that claims social

justice, universal human rights, or global peace must contend forthrightly with the deteriorating

ecological crisis at hand, as well as consider possible strategies and relationships that rupture the

status quo and transform environmental conditions that threaten disaster. A failure to integrate

ecological sustainability at the core of our political and pedagogical struggles for liberation, Kahn

argues, is to blindly and misguidedly adhere to an anthropocentric worldview in which emancipatory

dreams are deemed solely about human interests, without attention either to the health of the planet

or to the well-being of all species with whom we walk the earth.

Plans

The United States federal government should substantially increase its critical

cartographic exploration of the Earth’s oceans.

Affirm a substantial increase in critical cartographic exploration of the Earth’s oceans.

Critical cartographic exploration of Earth’s oceans should be substantially increased.

No plan

Contention Two

Counter Cartography is key to see past the objectivity of representational maps

Stallmann Freelance Cartographer and GIS analyst, ‘12

(Timothy, 2012, Alternative Cartographies: Building Collective Power, p. 63-65, Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Maps are not, have never intended to be , exact mirrors of the Earth’s surface. Simplification,

generalization and data refinement are key tools in the process of Western scientific cartography. It is

at the same time important to understand that traditional cartography still functions very much

through a logic of representation. Map icons, for example, may or may not be designed in order to

resemble, but they consistently are designed in order to represent. Representational maps work

because they function as part of (material) chains of resemblance which co-constitute the territory

which they claim to represent. This logic of representation is what makes it possible to point at a map

and say something like: “this is Raleigh,” “that is the Ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke,” or “the darker

purple areas have a higher median income.” These statements depend on institutions, practices,

relationships, bulldozers, annexation lawsuits, and census forms which discipline both spaces and

people. Re presentational cartography attempts to make invisible the institutions, practices,

relationships, and people who do the work necessary to keep chains of representation smoothly

functioning. The institutions, practices, technologies and bodies underlying representational

cartography claim, in Donna Haraway’s language , “the power to see and not be seen, to represent

while escaping representation.” 12 What escapes representation is oftentimes the object of counter-

cartography – the ways these systems function to maintain and increase a hierarchical distribution of

wealth, how they distribute life chances in ways which make it harder for marginalized communities

to exercise autonomy, how they violently impose the territorial will of the few on the many , and their

“perverse capacity – honed to perfection in the history of science tied to militarism, capitalism,

colonialism, and male supremacy – to distance the knowing subject from everybody and everything in

the interests of unfettered power.” 13 Counter-cartography, growing out of social movements which

situate themselves in opposition to the unfettered power of individual states, of multinational

corporations, of border regimes, neoliberalism or capitalism, opposes both the material of chains of

representation and the “this-is-that-is-there” logic of maps which they make possible. Where

representational cartography make s statements about a defined territory, non-

representational 14 counter- cartography aims to ask questions and open conversations. A non-

representational map is not a map which says nothing, nor is it one which has no connection with any

outside. Rather, non-representational mapping uses relations of what Foucault calls

similitude. 15 Graphic objects on the map plane have relations of similarity with material objects, but

also with other graphic objects, with words and with ideas. Similitude explodes the unidirectional

real → representation arrow of the Western map into a multitude of connections both within and

outside the map plane.

Aff helps overcomes privileged elite land-based thinking

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cardiff, UK,

Peters, Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK., 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

In sum, this book re-centres the oceans and seas as spaces relevant to unearthing new understandings

of the world which both move us beyond a terrestrial sphere, but also allow that terrestrial sphere to

be examined in novel ways. Studying oceans and seas are essential to understanding our ‘landed’

lives. Water worlds cannot be conceived as ‘out there’ or ‘irrelevant’ because maritime mobilities

permeate our daily existence invisibly, but significantly. That the sea touches our everyday lives alerts

us to the material and tangible reality of water worlds. Often emptied and reduced to metaphor (Mack

2011: 25), it is vital to remember that humans do not just imagine the water world but physically

experience it, and concomitantly, nonhumans are not outside of the seas and oceans; they are

enfolded within it in an embodied and enlivened way. Moreover, the seas and oceans are not merely

full of people, animals and material things; they are, at the most fundamental level, constituted of

matter. If we seek to bring to the fore the various ways the seas and oceans are ‘filled’, we can

attempt to write about the world in a different way, from perspectives which do not privilege the

land, or land-based thinking. Gaining novel and important insights from the water world enables us to

create a new language, a ‘Thalassology’, for conceptualizing watery-human interactions and which

may be employed at, but also beyond the oceans and seas.

Critical Cartography allows the people to be free from control by the elites.

Crampton, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 40-41, PAC]

In the last few years cartography has been slipping from the control of the powerful¶ elites that have

exercised dominance over it for several hundred years. You have¶ probably already have noticed this

with the emergence of fantastically popular¶ mapping applications such as Google Earth. The elites – the

map experts, the great¶ map houses of the West, national and local governments, the major mapping

and¶ GIS companies, and to a lesser extent academics – have been confronted by two¶ important

developments that threaten to undermine their dominance. First, as Google¶ Earth has shown, the

actual business of mapmaking, of collecting spatial data and¶ mapping it out, is passing out of the

hands of the experts. The ability to make a map,¶ even a stunning interactive 3D map, is now available

to anyone with a home computer¶ and a broadband internet connection. Cartography’s latest

“technological¶ transition” (Monmonier 1985; Perkins 2003) is not only a technological question¶ but a

mixture of “open source” collaborative tools, mobile mapping applications,¶ and the geospatial web.¶

While this trend has been apparent to industry insiders for some time, a second¶ challenge has also

been issued. This is a social theoretic critique that is challenging the way we have thought about

mapping in the post-war era. During the last¶ 50 years or so cartography and GIS have very much

aspired to push maps as factual¶ scientific documents. Critical cartography and GIS however

conceives of mapping¶ as embedded in specific relations of power. That is, mapping is involved in

what we¶ choose to represent, how we choose to represent objects such as people and things,¶ and

what decisions are made with those representations. In other words, mapping¶ is in and of itself a

political process. And it is a political process in which increasing¶ numbers of people are participating.

If the map is a specific set of power/knowledge¶ claims, then not only the state and the elites but the

rest of us too could make¶ competing and equally powerful claims (Wood 1992).¶ This one–two punch

– a pervasive set of imaginative mapping practices and¶ a critique highlighting the politics of mapping –

has “undisciplined” cartography.¶ That is, these two trends challenge the established cartographic

disciplinary methods¶ and practices. It has certainly not occurred without opposition or resistance –

which¶ all new ideas encounter. For example, there is quite a strong trend in the USA and¶ other

countries right now to make people “qualify” as GIS experts through a licensing¶ or certification

process. Indeed an organization known as Management Association¶ of Private Photogrammetric

Surveyors (MAPPS) which represents licensed surveyors¶ recently sued the US government in order to

force it to hire only licensed users of¶ geospatial information. This would have had large repercussions

on federal contractors¶ and further encouraged the development of “bodies of knowledge” that¶

people must qualify in before they can use maps or GIS (such as this one: DiBiase¶ et al. 2006). While

MAPPS lost their lawsuit they issued a statement saying “the¶ game is not over” (MAPPS 2007).¶ Critical

mapping operates from the ground up in a diffuse manner without¶ top-down control and doesn’t

need the approval of experts in order to flourish. It¶ is a movement that is ongoing whether or not

the academic discipline of cartography¶ is involved (D. Wood 2003). It is in this sense that cartography

is being freed from¶ the confines of the academy and opened up to the people.

Kitchin, National University of Ireland, Department of Geography and Dodge,

University of Manchester, Department of Geography, 7

*Rob, Martin, “Rethinking maps,” Progress in Human Geography, Volume: 31 Number: 3, page

5-7, http://eprints.nuim.ie/2755/1/RK_Rethinkingmaps.pdf, PAC]

The argument we forward is not being¶ made to demonstrate clever word play or to¶ partake in aimless

philosophizing.1 In contrast,¶ we are outlining what we believe is a significant conceptual shift in how

to think about¶ maps and cartography (and, by implication,¶ what are commonly understood as

other¶ representational outputs and endeavours); that¶ is a shift from ontology (how things are) to¶

ontogenesis (how things become) – from¶ (secure) representation to (unfolding) practice.¶ This is not

minor argument with little theoretical or practical implications. Rather it involves¶ adopting a

radically different view of maps and¶ cartography. In particular, we feel that the¶ ontological move

we detail has value for five¶ reasons. First, we think it is a productive¶ way to think about the world,

including cartography. It acknowledges how life unfolds in multifarious, contingent and relational

ways.¶ Second, we believe that it allows us a fresh¶ perspective on the epistemological bases of¶

cartography – how mapping and cartographic¶ research is undertaken. Third, it ‘denaturalizes¶ and

deprofessionalizes cartography’ (Pickles,¶ 2004: 17) by recasting cartography as a broad¶ set of spatial

practices, including gestural and¶ performative mappings such as Aboriginal¶ songlines, along with sketch

maps, countermaps, and participatory mapping, moving it¶ beyond a narrowly defined conception of

mapmaking. (This is not to denigrate the work of¶ professional cartographers, but to recognize¶ that they

work with a narrowly defined set of¶ practices that are simply a subset of all potential mappings.) As

such, it provides a way to¶ think critically about the practices of cartography and not simply the end

product (the¶ socalled map). Fourth, it provides a means to¶ examine the effects of mapping without

reducing such analysis to theories of power, instead¶ positioning maps as practices that have diverse¶

effects within multiple and shifting contexts.¶ Fifth, it provides a theoretical space in which¶ ‘those

who research mapping as a practical¶ form of applied knowledge, and those that seek¶ to critique the

map and mapping process’ can¶ meet, something that Perkins (2003: 341) feels¶ is unlikely to happen

as things stand. Perkins¶ (2003: 342) makes this claim because he feels¶ ‘addressing how maps work . . .

involves asking different questions to those that relate to¶ power of the medium’ – one set of questions¶

being technical, the other ideological. We do¶ not think that this is the case – both are questions

concerning practice.

Inherency Extensions Ocean represented as void between terrestrial civilization

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2001

[Philip E., The Social Construction of the Ocean, 114-117, Google books JO]

The idealization of the deep sea as a great void between developable, terrestrial places of civilization

was aided and reflected by representations in maps, art, and literature of the industrial capitalist era.

In cartography, the sea slipped into the background. The sea, once represented on maps by colorful

fish, terrifying monsters, dramatic swells, and valiant ships engaged in battle, now was drawn as a

blue, form- less expanse (Whitfield 1996). Taking this representation to its extreme absurdity, Lewis

Carroll penned the following verses to accompany the "Ocean-Chart" (Figure 10) in his 1876 poem The

Hunting of the Snark:

He had bought a large map representing the sea, without the least vestige of land: And the crew were

much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand. "What's the good of

Mercator's North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?" So the Bellman would cry:

and the crew would reply 'They are merely conventional signs! Other maps are such shapes, with their

islands and capes! But we've got our brave Captain to thank" (So the crew would protest) "that he's

bought us the best - A perfect and absolute blank!"

Rationalists of the era saw the ocean as a space resistant to social progress, modernization, and

development, and that therefore must be conquered or annihilated (or, short of annihilation, reserved

for outcast sailors and non-Western harpoonists). This attitude is aptly demonstrated in James Barry's

Progress of Hitman Culture (1777-1783), a mural that adorns the great hall of London's Royal Society of

Arts and Manufactures. Throughout the mural's six panels, Barry utilizes classical techniques (one critic

calls the mural "ultra-Michelangelesque") to create a "Sistine Chapel of the Enlightenment...

[celebrating] the missionary cult of genius, the glorification of the human faculties, the ameliorist

confidence, the encyclopedic approach to both history and knowledge, the patriotic pride alongside the

assertion of the brother- hood of nations" (Burke 1976:250). The first panel, "Orpheus Reclaiming

Mankind from a Savage State," is a pointed attack on the romantic glorification of the noble savage.

Contrasting this notion, the mural, according to its artist, seeks to demonstrate that "the obtaining of

happiness as well individual or public, depends upon cultivating the human faculties" (cited in Burke

1976: 248-249). The fourth panel, "Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames" (Figure 11, later titled

"Commerce, or the Triumph of the Thames"), is notable in that there is almost no water in the

foreground. This seems at first an odd way to represent navigation, unless one defines navigation as

the process whereby science is used not to tame or interpret but to annihilate ocean-space; in that

case the sight of gods, goddesses, statesmen, scientists, and philosophers literally crowding out the

vast expanses of the ocean is an appropriate celebration of the Age of Reason.

Although writing in 1989, William Golding captures the spirit of the times in Fire Down Below, the third

volume of his sea trilogy set in the early nineteenth century. After completing harrowing journeys from

England to Australia, two British aristocrats carry on the following conversation while courting each

other:

"I did not know there was so much [sea], Mr Talbot, that is the fact of the matter. One sees maps and

globes but it is different." "It is indeed different!" "Most of it you know, sir, is quite unnecessary."

Advantage Extensions

Resource Exploitation Focus SQ

SQ focus on resources limits our understandings of the oceans

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2001

[Philip E., The Social Construction of the Ocean, page 11-12, Google books, PAC]

The perspective most often applied in academic studies of marine issues is that of the ocean as a

space of resources. The ocean is perceived as akin to other resource-rich spaces, and its management

is characterized by similar dilemmas: How can the maximum sustainable yield be calculated and how

should portions of that yield be allocated to competing users? How can traditional tenure systems and

production practices be integrated with emerging resource needs, political power differentials, and

technological advances? How can one adjudicate between the needs of users of one ocean-space

resource and those who wish to use the same area for a different, incompatible resource use? How

can one implement comprehensive, binding management of a space expressly defined as outside state

territory when the key actors in building institutions of global govemance are territorially bounded

states?3

Students of resource management regimes note that in recent decades there have been dramatic

increases in the rates of extraction of both nonliving and living resources from marine environments.

While petroleum is the best known and, to date, most important non-living resource extracted from the

ocean floor, significant quantities of sand and gravel also are taken from marine space, and since the

1960s there has been strong interest in other marine minerals, including coal, polymetallic sulphides,

metalliferous sediments, phosphorite nodules, and, most notably, polymetallic manganese nodules

(Earney 1990). Since World War ll, the quantity of fish harvested from marine areas has risen at an

average growth rate of 3.6 percent per annum, increasing from 17.3 million metric tons (t) in 1948 to

61.7 million t in 1970 to 91.9 million t in 1995(FAO. various years). Most recently; the ocean has

attracted attention as an alternative source for renewable energy (Tsamenyi and Herriman 1998),

while deep sea habitats have amused the interest of biologists seeking previously unexploited genetic

material (Norse 1993).

Diminishing stocks of ocean resources (especially certain fish species) have led many scholars to

advocate a stronger regime for managing marine resource extraction. Some have suggested that a

stronger system of ocean governance be built around enhanced international regulatory organizations

(Bautista Payoyo 1994; Borgese 1986, 1998; Prager 1993). Others argue that this "tragedy of the

commons" situation requires a regime based on enclosure of ocean resources, so that each producer

will become a "stakeholder" with an incentive to restrict production to the ocean's maximum

sustainable yield (Denman 1984; Eckert 1979). Others suggest that models for sustainable ocean

governance maybe found in the "traditional" tenure systems of non-Westem societies (Cordell 1989;

McCay and Acheson 1987; jackson 1995; Ostrom 1990; Van Dyke et nl. 1993), while still others promote

a civil society-based partnership wherein fishers, processors. consumers, retailers, and

nongovernmental organizations work together to implement a sustainable extraction system

(Constance and Bonanno 2000; Steinberg 1999a).

Whichever policy proscription one adopts, the resource centered perspective offers a limited account

of the history of human interactions with the sea. Through the early twentieth century:

The only [extractive] resource exploitation was fishing, and with some infrequent exceptions of inshore

fisheries there were no serious problems of stock depletion until the technical modernization of fishing

vessels in the twentieth century The oceans |i.e., non-coastal areas] were used mainly as avenues of

commerce and for waging war and in the latter case military endeavors involved for the most part

colonization or naval encounters. Large invasions across ocean spaces were difficult and infrequent.

Therefore the major use of the oceans was essentially for the transportation of goods. (Zacher and

McConnell 1990: 78)

Oceans as Blank Resource Reserve

In an industrial capitalist period, the ocean is described as a blank backdrop,

wilderness, and filler—this allows elitist control and capitalist gain

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography University of Cardiff, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK., 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

Our world is a water world. The oceans and seas are entwined, often invisibly but nonetheless

importantly, with our everyday lives. Trade, tourism, migration, terrorism, and resource exploitation all

happen in, at, and across the oceans. The globalized world of the twenty-first century is thus

thoroughly dependent upon water worlds. Despite this, geography, as ‘earth writing’ (Barnes and

Duncan 1992: 1), has largely taken its etymological roots seriously (Steinberg 1999a, Peters 2010). The

discipline has been a de facto terrestrial study; the sea not accorded the status of a ‘place’ worthy of

scholarly study (Hill and Abbott 2009: 276). In the words of Lewis Carroll’s crew in The Hunting of the

Snark (see Foreword), until very recently, geography has reduced the sea to ‘a perfect and absolute

blank’. Such status has been most marked within human geography, where focus on sociocultural and

political life rarely strays beyond the shore (Steinberg 1999a: 367). As Mack identifies, water worlds

have generally been relegated to, either the backdrop to the stage on which the real action is seen to

take place – that is, the land – or they are portrayed simply as the means of connection between

activities taking place at coasts and in their interiors. (2011: 19) As a consequence, the predominant

view of the sea has come to be characterized as, a quintessential wilderness, a void without

community other than that temporarily established on boats crewed by those with the shared

experience of being tossed about on its surface. (Mack 2011: 17) Such a conceptualization is

commonly attributed to ‘modern’ framings in the industrial capitalist era that have endured until the

twenty-first century (Steinberg 2001: 113). Oceans and seas have been dismissed as spatial fillers to be

traversed for the capital gain of those on land (Steinberg 2001) or conquered for means of long

distance imperial control (Law 1986, Ogborn 2002). Moreover, because so few moderns live their lives

at sea – it is not a place of ‘permanent, sedentary habitation’ (Steinberg 1999a: 369) – water worlds

often remain at the edge of everyday consciousness. As Langewiesche states, since we live on land,

and are usually beyond the sight of the sea, it is easy to forget that our world is an ocean world. (2004:

3)

Solves Gulf of Mexico Scenarios

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography University of Cardiff, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK, 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, J.J.]

While each of these Gulf/Caribbean images is certainly maritime, none of them suggests an underlying

historical, or ongoing, space of maritime unity - a Mediterranean space of crossings. Mexico, which

might logically be perceived as lying on the 'other' side of the region (the equivalent of North Africa

and the Levant, in the Mediterranean context), is instead seen as an extension of the arid western

United States, not a space that is joined to the United States through maritime connectivity. This

geographic erasure in U.S. thought, in which the southern maritime frontier is subsumed by the

western land frontier, is reproduced in the Hollywood Western, where Mexico is almost universally

depicted as an extension of the southwestern U.S. desert, not the land that lies across from the Gulf

coast of the southeastern United States. The resulting conception of the Gulf region as a series of local

destinations, as opposed to being an integrated maritime space unified by a body of water, is so

pervasive that when Mississippi state legislator Steve Holland proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico

the Gulf of America in an effort to spoof his anti-immigration colleagues the joke was lost on the

national media (Wilkinson 2012)."

Thinking of the ocean space as a homogenous, whole region perpetuates colonial

relations to resources

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography University of Cardiff, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK, 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, J.J.]

Giaccaria and Minca (2011) advance this critique by identifying ocean basin-based regions as

exemplarily postcolonial spaces that reproduce and naturalize ideals of unity in difference. On the one

hand, the ocean in the middle of a maritime region links spaces and societies that are purported to be

'naturally' different. The different societies exist on opposite sides of a seemingly natural divide, a

purportedly empty and separating ocean. On the other hand, because the ocean connects, even if it

does not homogenize, the societies in an ocean region appear to exist in a permanent and natural

universe of exchange and interaction that reproduces difference. Existing within an idealized arena of

connectivity amidst difference, the various societies within an ocean region are linked together in an

arena of mobility in which all entities - those with relatively more power and those with relatively less

- are transformed even as they resist the 'other'. While all ocean regions are, in this sense,

prefiguratively postcolonial, arguably the paradigmatic case is the Mediterranean (Chambers 2008). In

part, this is because of the Mediterranean's physical geography (relatively small and enclosed), in art it is

because of its location at the intersection of Europe an one of its longest standing 'others' (the Arab

'orient'), and in part it is because of the ion history in the humanities of treating the Mediterranean as a

singularly unified, but also resolutely divided, region (Giaccaria and Minca 2011). For all these reasons,

[amidst] a paradoxical interplay between different (and potentially conflictual) representations of this

sea that alternate narratives of homogeneity and continuity with those of heterogeneity and

discontinuity, [the rhetoric of mediterraneanism sustains] the belief in the existence of a geographical

object called the Mediterranean, where different forms of proximity (morphological. climatic. cultural.

religious. etc.) justify a specific rhetorical apparatus through the production of a simplified field of

inquiry, otherwise irreducible to a single image. (Giaccaria and Minca 2011: 348, emphasis in original)

The Mediterranean thus comes to be seen as something that, although permanently divided, is also

permanent in its wholeness: 'The mediterraneisme de la fracture [is understood as] something

substantially immutable - a vision that resembles, in many ways, the cultural "containers" imagined and

celebrated in Orientalist colonial rhetoric and Romantic literature' (Giaccaria and Minca 2011: 353).

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography University of Cardiff, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, J.J.]

Like any antithetical categorization, the ocean region can either challenge or reproduce the

fundamental assumptions of the dominant construction to which it is posed as an alternative. On the

one hand, when one designates an ocean as the element that unites a region, fluidity and connections

replace embeddedness in static points and bounded territories as the fundamental nexus of society

and space. 'Roots' are replaced by 'routes', and this suggests a radical ontology of deterritorialization

and reterritorialization (cf. Deleuze and Guattari 1987). On the other hand, by reaffirming the concept

of the region as a unit of analysis - a unit that is stable in space and time and, therefore, potentially

explanatory - the ocean region perspective can inadvertently reproduce the static and essentialist

spatial ontology that it attempts to subvert.'

Solves Overfishing/Whaling

Understanding ocean cartography opens the door for the understanding of oceanic

cultures relationship to fishing, whaling, etc.

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2009

*Philip E., “Oceans,” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography,

http://philsteinberg.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/iehg.pdf, accessed 6/27/14 JO]

While contemporary studies of the political geography of the sea can draw upon a long history of

political geographers studying maritime conflict, the study of marine issues is quite new in cultural

geography. Of course, there always have been marine cultural geographies; seafaring and fishing

communities invariably display distinct cultural formations that reflect and impact the surrounding

marine environment. Historically, however, few geographers have devoted their attention to the

cultures of fishing communities and even fewer have studied the cultures of societies engaged in uses

of the deep sea (e.g, whalers, naval personnel, merchant mariners, oceanographic and fisheries

researchers, or long-distance fishers). As has occurred throughout cultural geography since the 1980s,

much of the impetus for new cultural geographic studies of the sea has come from outside the

discipline, especially from anthropology, history, literature, and cultural studies. This turn to the sea

— and to understanding the sea as a space of culture — perhaps emerged first in the discipline of

history. Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II

demonstrated that the ocean, far from being an empty space between cultures, was in fact a space of

interaction in which cultures (and natures) were formed and transformed. This perspective, which

directly challenged prevailing ideas in cultural ecology (as well as in history and anthropology) about

cultures being rooted in place, was soon taken up by other historians who started new ocean-basin-

based organizations of history (most notably Atlantic history). In the 1990s, this work on the history of

ocean regions began to be joined with work emerging from cultural studies (and, increasingly, cultural

geography) on diasporas, hybrid identities, and transnationalism. Broadly, scholars associated with this school

of thought stress the ways in which cultures are continually reproduced through movement and connection

rather than through stasis in place. A key motivational book for integrating the ocean within this line of

thinking was Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic Although Gilroy only indirectly considers the ocean as a

material space of society, the book, which has been highly influential in cultural studies, suggests the

power of oceanic metaphors, and, by association, oceanic spaces, in interpreting cultural formations.

Extinction

That exacerbates structural violence and makes extinction inevitable

Byrne, Head of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and Toley, Directs the

Urban Studies and Wheaton in Chicago programs 6

(John – Head of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy – It’s a leading institution for interdisciplinary graduate education, research,

and advocacy in energy and environmental policy – John is also a Distinguished Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at the University of

Delaware – 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Toley – Directs the Urban Studies

and Wheaton in Chicago programs - Selected to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Emerging Leaders Program for 2011-2013 - expertise

includes issues related to urban and environmental politics, global cities, and public policy, Transforming Power, Energy, Environment, and

Society in Conflict, “Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a Discourse,” p. 1-32 http://ceepolicy.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/08/2006_es_energy_as_a_social_project2.pdf Accessed 7/1/14) NM

From climate change to acid rain, contaminated landscapes, mercury pollution, and biodiversity loss,2

the origins of many of our least tractable environmental problems can be traced to the operations of

the modern energy system. A scan of nightfall across the planet reveals a social dilemma that also

accompanies this system’s operations: invented over a century ago, electric light remains an experience

only for the socially privileged. Two billion human beings—almost one-third of the planet’s population—

experience evening light by candle, oil lamp, or open fire, reminding us that energy modernization has

left intact—and sometimes exacerbated—social inequalities that its architects promised would be

banished (Smil, 2003: 370 - 373). And there is the disturbing link between modern energy and war.3

Whether as a mineral whose control is fought over by the powerful (for a recent history of conflict over

oil, see Klare, 2002b, 2004, 2006), or as the enablement of an atomic war of extinction, modern energy

makes modern life possible and threatens its future. With environmental crisis, social inequality, and

military conflict among the significant problems of contemporary energy-society relations, the

importance of a social analysis of the modern energy system appears easy to establish. One might,

therefore, expect a lively and fulsome debate of the sector’s performance, including critical inquiries

into the politics, sociology, and political economy of modern energy. Yet, contemporary discourse on

the subject is disappointing: instead of a social analysis of energy regimes, the field seems to be a

captive of euphoric technological visions and associated studies of “energy futures” that imagine the

pleasing consequences of new energy sources and devices.4 One stream of euphoria has sprung from

advocates of conventional energy, perhaps best represented by the unflappable optimists of nuclear

power 1 2 Transforming Power who, early on, promised to invent a “magical fire” (Weinberg, 1972)

capable of meeting any level of energy demand inexhaustibly in a manner “too cheap to meter” (Lewis

Strauss, cited in the New York Times 1954, 1955). In reply to those who fear catastrophic accidents from

the “magical fire” or the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a new promise is made to realize “inherently

safe reactors” (Weinberg, 1985) that risk neither serious accident nor intentionally harmful use of high-

energy physics. Less grandiose, but no less optimistic, forecasts can be heard from fossil fuel

enthusiasts who, likewise, project more energy, at lower cost, and with little ecological harm (see,

e.g., Yergin and Stoppard, 2003). Skeptics of conventional energy, eschewing involvement with

dangerously scaled technologies and their ecological consequences, find solace in “sustainable energy

alternatives” that constitute a second euphoric stream. Preferring to redirect attention to smaller, and

supposedly more democratic, options, “green” energy advocates conceive devices and systems that

prefigure a revival of human scale development, local self-determination, and a commitment to

ecological balance. Among supporters are those who believe that greening the energy system embodies

universal social ideals and, as a result, can overcome current conflicts between energy “haves” and

“havenots.” 5 In a recent contribution to this perspective, Vaitheeswaran suggests (2003: 327, 291),

“today’s nascent energy revolution will truly deliver power to the people” as “micropower meets village

power.” Hermann Scheer echoes the idea of an alternative energy-led social transformation: the shift to

a “solar global economy... can satisfy the material needs of all mankind and grant us the freedom to

guarantee truly universal and equal human rights and to safeguard the world’s cultural diversity”

(Scheer, 2002: 34).6 The euphoria of contemporary energy studies is noteworthy for its historical

consistency with a nearly unbroken social narrative of wonderment extending from the advent of steam

power through the spread of electricity (Nye, 1999). The modern energy regime that now powers

nuclear weaponry and risks disruption of the planet’s climate is a product of promises pursued

without sustained public examination of the political, social, economic, and ecological record of the

regime’s operations. However, the discursive landscape has occasionally included thoughtful

exploration of the broader contours of energy-environment-society relations. As early as 1934, Lewis

Mumford (see also his two-volume Myth of the Machine , 1966; 1970) critiqued the industrial energy

system for being a key source of social and ecological alienation (1934: 196): The changes that were

manifested in every department of Technics rested for the most part on one central fact: the increase of

energy. Size, speed, quantity, the multiplication of machines, were all reflections of the new means of

utilizing fuel and the enlargement of the available stock of fuel itself. Power was dissociated from its

natural human and geographic limitations: from the caprices of the weather, from the irregularities that

definitely restrict the output of men and animals. By 1961, Mumford despaired that modernity had

retrogressed into a life harming dead end (1961: 263, 248): ...an orgy of uncontrolled production and

equally uncontrolled reproduction: machine fodder and cannon fodder: surplus values and surplus

populations... The dirty crowded houses, the dank airless courts and alleys, the bleak pavements, the

sulphurous atmosphere, the over-routinized and dehumanized factory, the drill schools, the second-

hand experiences, the starvation of the senses, the remoteness from nature and animal activity—here

are the enemies. The living organism demands a life-sustaining environment. Modernity’s formula for

two centuries had been to increase energy in order to produce overwhelming economic growth. While

diagnosing the inevitable failures of this logic, Mumford nevertheless warned that modernity’s

supporters would seek to derail present-tense7 evaluations of the era’s social and ecological

performance with forecasts of a bountiful future in which, finally, the perennial social conflicts over

resources would end. Contrary to traditional notions of democratic governance, Mumford observed

that the modern ideal actually issues from a pseudomorph that he named the “democratic-

authoritarian bargain” (1964: 6) in which the modern energy regime and capitalist political economy join

in a promise to produce “every material advantage, every intellectual and emotional stimulus [one] may

desire, in quantities hardly available hitherto even for a restricted minority” on the condition that

society demands only what the regime is capable and willing to offer. An authoritarian energy order

thereby constructs an aspirational democracy while facilitating the abstraction of production and

consumption from non-economic social values.

Solvency Extensions

Deconstruction

Accepting maps as cultural texts is critical to deconstruct cartography and redefine its

social relationships -objective evaluations always fail

Harley, Director of the Office of Map History in the American Geographical Society

Collection, 89

*JB, Summer 1989, “Deconstructing the Map,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 26 No 2 , page 7-9,

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-

map?rgn=main;view=fulltext, PAC]

To move inward from the question of cartographic rules — the social context within which map

knowledge is fashioned — we have to turn to the cartographic text itself. The word 'text' is

deliberately chosen. It is now generally accepted that the model of text can have a much wider

application than to literary texts alone. To non-book texts such as musical compositions and

architectural structures we can confidently add the graphic texts we call maps.42 It has been said that

"what constitutes a text is not the presence of linguistic elements but the act of construction" so that

maps, as "constructions employing a conventional sign system,"43 become texts. With Barthes we

could say they "presuppose a signifying consciousness" that it is our business to uncover.44¶ 'Text' is

certainly a better metaphor for maps than the mirror of nature. Maps are a cultural text. By accepting

their textuality we are able to embrace a number of different interpretative possibilities.¶ Instead of

just the transparency of clarity we can discover the pregnancy of the¶ opaque. To fact we can add

myth, and instead of innocence we may expect¶ duplicity. Rather than working with a formal science

of communication, or even a¶ sequence of loosely related technical processes, our concern is

redirected to a¶ history and anthropology of the image, and we learn to recognize the narrative¶

qualities of cartographic representation45¶ as well as its claim to provide a synchronous picture of the

world. All this, moreover, is likely to lead to a rejection of the¶ neutrality of maps, as we come to

define their intentions rather than the literal face¶ of representation, and as we begin to accept the

social consequences of cartographic practices. I am not suggesting that the direction of textual enquiry

offers a¶ simple set of techniques for reading either contemporary or historical maps. In¶ some cases we

will have to conclude that there are many aspects of their meaning¶ that are undecidable.46¶

Deconstruction, as discourse analysis in general, demands a closer and deeper reading of the

cartographic text than has been the general practice in either¶ cartography or the history of

cartography. It may be regarded as a search for¶ alternative meanings. "To deconstruct," it is

argued,¶ is to reinscribe and resituate meanings, events and objects within broader movements and¶

structures; it is, so to speak, to reverse the imposing tapestry in order to expose in all its¶

unglamorously dishevelled tangle the threads constituting the well-heeled image it presents to the

world.47¶ The published map also has a 'well-heeled image' and our reading has to go¶ beyond the

assessment of geometric accuracy, beyond the fixing of location, and¶ beyond the recognition of

topographical patterns and geographies. Such interpretation begins from the premise that the map

text may contain "unperceived¶ contradictions or duplicitous tensions"48¶ that undermine the

surface layer of¶ standard objectivity. Maps are slippery customers. In the words of W.J.T. Mitchell,

writing of languages and images in general, we may need to regard them more¶ as "enigmas, problems

to be explained, prison-houses which lock the understanding away from the world." We should regard

them "as the sort of sign that presents¶ a deceptive appearance of naturalness and transparence

concealing an opaque,¶ distorting, arbitrary mechanism of representation."49¶ Throughout the history

of¶ modern cartography in the West, for example, there have been numerous instances of where maps

have been falsified, of where they have been censored or kept¶ secret, or of where they have

surreptitiously contradicted the rules of their¶ proclaimed scientific status.50¶ As in the case of these

practices, map deconstruction would focus on aspects¶ of maps that many interpreters have glossed

over. Writing of "Derrida's most¶ typical deconstructive moves," Christopher Norris notes that¶

deconstruction is the vigilant seeking-out of those 'aporias,' blindspots or moments of¶ self-

contradiction where a text involuntarily betrays the tension between rhetoric and logic,¶ between

what it manifestly means to say and what it is nonetheless constrained to mean. To 'deconstruct' a

piece of writing is therefore to operate a kind of strategic reversal, seizing on¶ precisely those

unregarded details (casual metaphors, footnotes, incidental turns of argument) which are always, and

necessarily, passed over by interpreters of a more orthodox¶ persuasion. For it is here, in the margins of

the text - the 'margins,' that is, as defined by a¶ powerful normative consensus — that deconstruction

discovers those same unsettling forces¶ at work.51

AT: Won’t Change Maps/Actions

Status quo geography ignores the ocean—static disciplines entrenched in society

means new studies must start from a marine perspective

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cardiff, and

Peters, Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Jon, Kimberley, Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the Ocean; pg 10-11; PAC]

To paraphrase Cresswell (2000: 263), we have argued to date that human geographers have yet to

adequately ‘talk about the water’. Despite this, in various ways the marine and maritime world lap

into our everyday lives through the use of language. Sayings such as ‘all hands on deck’, ‘you can’t

swing a cat in here’ or ‘all at sea’, have moved seamlessly from ship-based contexts to land-based life,

and thus, turns of phrase are appropriated and tie together the terrestrial and water world. Such sayings

remind us that language remains a key way through which humans make sense of our geographies. As

Wittgenstein reminds us, ‘the world we live in is the words we use’ (cited in Raban 1999: 151), and

although ‘how places are made is at the core of human geography, *we have perhaps+ neglected1991:

684). Sensitizing ourselves to language, and the philosophies that underpin it, is therefore a further

means by which we can take the ‘large *blank+ map representing the sea’ and reinvent it as something

we can ‘all understand’ (see Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, Foreword).

As our world is not only terrestrial but also marine in focus, it is possible to move beyond a traditional

terrestrial vocabulary that is dominantly used to describe, conceptualize, and understand it. According

to Cresswell (2006), the dominant way in which the terrestrial world is studied is through adopting the

language of a ‘sedentary metaphysics’ (after Malkki 1992). This language seeks to ‘divide the world up

into clearly bounded territorial units’ (Cresswell 2004: 109), whilst the process of place-making

involves the ‘carving out of ‘permanences”’ (Harvey 1996: 294, emphasis added). It is from this

sedentary metaphysics that our ‘common sense’ categorizations of the world – as fixed, static and

durable – originate (Bourdieu 1977, 1991). Although this narrative may be appropriate for many places,

it also produces a limited geographical imagination in a number of ways. Due to the radical difference

in physicality between the terrestrial and the oceanic (Steinberg 1999a: 327), these perspectives serve

to not only marginalize the marine world from scholarly study, but also preclude theoretical

innovations that may help to conceptualize this world more appropriately. We have seen how

geography has always been a ‘land’ discipline, but in this way is also became a ‘locked’ discipline,

fixated on the sedentary, static and terrestrially rooted rather than processes of flow, hybridity and

mobile routes.

Cartography of Debate 1AC- Draft

<Counter Cartography – this 1ac would be individualized to the debaters including

personal experience and narrative>

Current conceptualizations of the Earth’s oceans is rooted in a history of Eurocentrism

colonialism

Lewis, Stanford University, International History, Senior Lecturer, 99

*Martin W., April 1999, “Dividing the Ocean Sea”, Geographical Review, Vol 89, Num 2, pg 189-190, PAC]

Three major variations in the conceptualization of sea space can be seen over the centuries. First is the

manner in which the oceanic realm as a whole has been divided into its major constituent units, now

called "oceans." Second is the changing way in which the hierarchy of oceanic divisions and

subdivisions has been arrayed: Seas, for example, are now considered constituent units of the larger

oceans, but this has not always been the case. Third is the matter of nomenclature, the changing

names assigned to the (more or less) same bodies of water. Although naming is seemingly the least

complex issue at hand, it can have significant political and ideological ramifications; the demise of the

"Ethiopian Ocean" in the nineteenth century, for example, perhaps reflects the denigration of Africa

that occurred with the rise of racist pseudoscience (Bernal 1987).

The conventional present-day schema of global geography, encompassing continental and oceanic

constructs alike, is rooted in a specifically European worldview. During the colonial era, Western ideas

about the division of the globe were forced on, and often eagerly borrowed by, other societies the

world over, thereby largely extinguishing competing geographies. To examine the history of imagining

the ocean, one must therefore begin with ancient Greek geography, even though Greek ideas on this

score may ultimately have been rooted in Babylonian, Egyptian, and Phoenician concepts that are

now largely lost. Tracing out this story involves examining the cartographic evidence; certainly other

modes of division are imaginable and possible, but it is the cartographic imagination that most directly

informs our division of the Ocean Sea.

Debate makes us always forced to be “lost at sea” and we engage with arguments and

observations that are problematic— the aff is a lighthouse to which our arguments are

filtered through

Tally, American and World Literature Professor at Texas State University, 2011

[Robert T., January 2011, New American Notes Online, “On Literary Cartography: Narrative as a

Spatially Symbolic Act,” http://www.nanocrit.com/issues/issue-1-navigation/literary-

cartography-narrative-spatially-symbolic-act/, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

The experience of being in the world is one of constant navigation, of locating oneself in relation to

others, of orientation in space and in time, of charting a course, of placement and displacement, and

of movements though an array of geographical and historical phenomena. The human condition is

one of being “at sea”—both launched into the world and somewhat lost in it—and, like the navigator,

we employ maps, logs, our own observations and imagination to make sense of our place. As Frank

Kermode notes in The Sense of an Ending, “Men, like poets, rush ‘into the middest,’ in medias res,

when they are born; they also die in mediis rebus, and to make sense of their span they need fictive

concords with origins and ends, such as give meaning to lives and to poems” (7). Kermode is speaking

of temporal organization, but this experience of being “in the middest” is also acutely spatial, and it

calls for cartographic solutions that are likewise “fictive concords” with here and there, near and far,

home and away, and so on. Humans come to terms with this reality by projecting imaginary lines—

latitude and longitude are obvious examples—inventing provisional landmarks or making narratives.

An approach to narrative as a spatially symbolic act enables us to navigate literature and the world in

interesting new ways, by asking different questions, exploring different territories, and discovering

different effects. As writers map their worlds, so readers or critics may engage with these narrative

maps in order to orient ourselves and make sense of things in a changing world.

The aff engage the reader through a crafted scope, unites different aspects that are an

essential form of critical cartography

Tally, American and World Literature Professor at Texas State University, 2011

[Robert T., January 2011, New American Notes Online, “On Literary Cartography: Narrative as a

Spatially Symbolic Act,” http://www.nanocrit.com/issues/issue-1-navigation/literary-

cartography-narrative-spatially-symbolic-act/, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

This cartographic project of the novel is much like Jameson’s conception of cognitive mapping as a

strategy for situating oneself within a complex and seemingly unrepresentable social totality. Jameson

famously derives the concept from Kevin Lynch’s analysis of urban disorientation in Image of the City

and from Louis Althusser’s revisionary theory of ideology as an imaginary solution to real contradictions.

It is worth noting, however, that Jameson first used the term (albeit a somewhat different way) in

reference to narrative in The Political Unconscious, where he posits realism as “a narrative discourse

which unites the experience of everyday life with a cognitive, mapping, or well nigh ‘scientific’

perspective” (90). Narrative itself is a form of mapping, organizing the data of life into recognizable

patterns with it understood that the result is a fiction, a mere representation of space and place,

whose function is to help the viewer or mapmaker, like the reader or writer, make sense of the world.

In Maps of the Imagination, Peter Turchi asserts that all writing is in one way or another cartographic,

but that storytelling is an essential form of mapping, of orienting oneself and one’s readers in space.

The storyteller, like the mapmaker, determines the boundaries of the space to be represented, selects

the elements to be included, establishes the scope and scale, and so on. In producing the narrative,

the writer also produces a map of the space, connecting the reader to a totality formed by the

narrative itself. Narrative is thus a spatially symbolic act in establishing a literary cartography for the

reader.

Performative Mapping

Kitchen, Geography Professor at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Perkins

Senior Lecturer of Geography at University of Manchester and Dodge Senior Lecturer

of Human Geography at University of Manchester, ‘11

(Rob, Chris and Martin, June 2nd 2001, Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, p. 17,

Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Mapping can then be conceptualized as a suite of cultural practices involving action and affects. This

kind of approach reflects a philosophical shift towards performance and mobility and away from

essence and material stability. This rethinking of cartography is supported by historical and

contemporary work. Researchers concerned with historical contexts increasingly stress the interplay

between place, times, actions and ideas. Mapping in different cultures reflects multiple traditions

including: an internal or cognitive set of behaviours involving thinking about space; a material culture

in which mapping is recorded as an artefact or object; and a performance tradition where space may

be enacted through gesture, ritual, song, speech dance or poetry (Woodward and Lewis 1998). In any

cultural context there will be a different blend of these elements. Interpreting mapping then means

considering the context in which mapping takes place; the way it is invoked as part of diverse

practices to do work in the world. Instead of focusing on artefacts, aesthetics, human agency, or the

politics of mapping, research focuses on how maps are constituted in and through diverse, discursive

and material processes. Arguments presently emerging in the literature extend both the notion

of maps as processes and the ontological thought underpinning cartography by problematizing the

ontological security enjoyed by maps. The idea that a map represents spatial truth might have been

challenged and rethought in a number of different ways, but a map is nonetheless understood as

a coherent, stable product – a map; a map has an undeniable essence that can be interrogated and

from which one can derive understanding. Moreover, the maps and mapping practices maintain and

reinforce dualities with respect to their conceptualization – production–consumption, author–reader,

design– use, representation–practice, map–space. This position has been rejected by those adopting

performative and ontogenetic understandings of mapping. Maps rather are understood as always in a

state of becoming; as always mapping; as simultaneously being produced and consumed,

authored and read, designed and used, serving as a representation and practice; as

mutually constituting map/space in a dyadic relationship

The counter mapping strategies of the 1AC access the Thirdspace—through which we

can access Identity knowledge and understand our place in the world

Taylor, Vanderbilt University Philosophy Graduate, 2013

[Katie Headrick, August 2013, Counter-mapping the Neighborhood: A Social Design Experiment for

Spatial Justice, Graduate School of Vanderbilt University dissertation submitted to and approved by

Philosophy Department in Learning, Teaching and Diversity, pg. 5-6, accessed 6-30-14,

http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-06142013-141535/unrestricted/HeadrickTaylor.pdf,

KMM]

From my position as someone who is neither a “local” of Woodbridge nor a powerful entity, but also

from several years of participant observation and study, I have come to think of counter-mapping as a

thirdspace practice. By thirdspace, I mean a kind of interface “produced by processes that exceed the

forms of knowledge that divide the world into binary oppositions” (Routledge, 2009; p. 753).

Thirdspace is where unofficial meets official, informal meets formal, represented meets lived, and

concrete meets abstract to create and/or imagine something emergent and new (Lefebvre, 1991; Soja,

1996). I want to propose three specific ways in which counter-mapping is a thirdspace practice. These

distinct qualities of counter-mapping relate to how people understand, make, and take place. By

understanding place, I mean to describe how people know what they know about a particular

geography. By making place, I mean to describe how people talk about and imbue geography with

personally relevant meaning. And by taking place, I mean to talk about how people exert ownership

of and agency within a geography of which others may have designs.

The following analytic categories of counter-mapping emerged from watching adult residents participate

in a participatory planning process with urban planners (Phase I) and became important for developing

research questions and designing activities for youth in an experimental teaching case (Phase II). I then

looked for these categories in how youth were talking about and representing their neighborhoods

throughout the designed activities (Phase II) and in interaction with urban planners and local

stakeholders (Phase III) to determine if the design met its over-arching objective – to teach and engage

youth in counter-mapping. These categories then became more refined during retrospective analyses,

looking back across all three phases. The three analytic categories of counter-mapping that this

dissertation describes and examines across the three phases of research are as follows:

Counter-mapping creates opportunity for residents’ “on the move” epistemology based on mobility

(Cresswell, 2006) to meet a “grid epistemology” (Dixon & Jones, 1998); locals (informally) know places

by moving through them rather than from (formally) seeing an area from above (e.g., de Certeau, 1984;

Creswell, 2006; Jacobs, 1961).

Counter-mapping creates opportunity for story-telling from sensuous, historical, and lived experience

to simultaneously understand and disrupt a disembodied, abstract narrative represented by a map

(Eckstein, 2003); locals bring concrete experiences in place to abstract conceptions of space to build

“sense-scapes” (Grasseni, 2009) or lived experience and desire.

Counter-mapping creates opportunity for demonstrating spatial literacies; residents leverage “official”

tools (i.e., geospatial information and technologies) and discursive practices (e.g., understanding urban

phenomena through spatial concepts like scale, distribution, accessibility) to tell and re-represent

personally relevant arrangements for the future (Fox, 1998; Peluso, 1995).

People may be inclined to take-up counter-mapping as a sociotechnical performance genre because of

spatial inequities that they experience on the ground, in their daily lives (e.g., living in a food desert, no

bicycle lanes), in an effort to take place in the ongoing “official” discursive processes of their ever-

evolving communities. These three analytic categories of counter-mapping may not exhaustively

describe this performance genre. However, these categories describe how counter-mapping is a

thirdspace practice where informal and formal ways of understanding, making, and taking place come

together and inform the other. These categories were the most visible and reoccurring in my analysis of

interactions during Phase I of the study. These categories were also the most helpful in making

conjectures about designing activities for youth counter-mapping in Phase II and Phase III, and then

making sense of what occurred. These analytic categories are fluid, in interaction, and inform the other,

but for clarity of design, analysis, and writing, I will attempt to separate them in the sections and

chapters that follow.

Cartography of Debate Extensions

Narrative Cartography

Maps are the starting reference point that give sense to a lot of things in the world

and our place in it

Tally, American and World Literature Professor at Texas State University, 2011

[Robert T., January 2011, New American Notes Online, “On Literary Cartography: Narrative as a

Spatially Symbolic Act,” http://www.nanocrit.com/issues/issue-1-navigation/literary-

cartography-narrative-spatially-symbolic-act/, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

Navigation is thus a figure for one’s existential condition and for literature. From a phenomenological

perspective, the subject must attempt to understand the world by performing a kind of cartographic

activity. Fredric Jameson has called this sort of cartographic activity “cognitive mapping,” a relational

framework that enables “a situational representation on the part of the individual subject to that

vaster and properly unrepresentable totality which is the ensemble of society’s structures as a whole”

(Postmodernism 51–54). Mapping establishes a meaningful framework for the subject, with points of

reference for thinking about oneself and one’s place in the broader social space. Likewise, narratives

are frequently used to make sense of, or give form to, this world in significant ways. As such, literary

works serve a cartographic function by creating a figurative or allegorical representation of a social

space, broadly understood. This I refer to as literary cartography. In his Theory of the Novel, Georg

Lukács contrasts the closed or integrated civilization of the ancient epic and the fragmented world of

the novel, and his rhetoric implies the sort of cartographic anxiety that calls for narrative maps. The

epic hails from that “happy age” when “the starry sky is the map of all possible paths *…+ The world is

wide and yet it is like a home” (29). The modern condition, whose representative form is the novel, is

marked by a split between interior and exterior or between the subject and the world, which is now “a

world abandoned by God” and characterized by a “transcendental homelessness” (Lukács 88, 41). This

existential anxiety translates into a bewilderment in space, as one can no longer feel “at home” in the

word. As Heidegger puts it in Being and Time, “In anxiety one feels ‘uncanny’ [unheimlich]. Here the

peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to

expression: the ‘nothing and nowhere’. But here ‘uncanniness’ also means ‘not-being-at-home’ [das

Nicht-zuhause-sein+” (233). The age of the novel is marked by an uncanny homelessness that requires

a figurative way to connect oneself to one’s world. And that is what the novel becomes, a literary

cartography providing figurative or allegorical images of the world and one’s place in it.

Anzaldua/Borderlands

Floating in an uncharted sea, only by searching for the subjective pluralism through

exploration can we find ourselves

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 79, J.J.]

These numerous possibilities leave la mestiza floundering in uncharted seas. In perceiving conflicting

information and points of view, she is subjected to a swamping of her psychological borders. She has

discovered that she can't hold concepts or ideas in rigid boundaries. The borders and walls that are

supposed to keep the undesirable ideas out are entrenched habits and patterns of behavior; these

habits and patterns are the enemy within. Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible is she able

to stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically. La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual

formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move

toward a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from

set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.

The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She

learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to

juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic mode—nothing is thrust out,

the good the bad and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. Not only does she sustain

contradictions, she turns the ambivalence into something else.

Borders are developed through objective mapping mentality

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 3, J.J.]

The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and

bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a

third country—a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to

distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a

vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a

constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants. Los atravesados live here:

the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed,

the half dead; in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the "normal."

Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressors, aliens-whether

they possess documents or not, whether they're Chicanos, Indians or Blacks. Do not enter, trespassers

will be taped, maimed, strangled, gassed, shot. The only “legitimate” inhabitants are those in power, the

whites and those who align themselves with whites. Tension grips the inhabitants of the borderlands

like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside there and death is no stranger.

We are “The Crossed”, the mixed, the mestiza—constantly crossing over and cross-

pollinizing identity, making an “alien” to society where you don’t quite fit in

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 77, J.J.]

Pg. 77- the borderlands

Jose Vascocelos, Mexican philosopher, envisaged una raza mestiza, una mezcla de razas afines, una raza

de color—la primera raza sintesis del globo. He called it a cosmic race, la raza cosmica, a fifth race

embracing the four major races of the world. Opposite to the theory of the pure Aryan, and to the policy

of racial purity that white America practices, his theory is one of inclusivity. At the confluence of two or

more generic streams, with chromosomes constantly "crossing over." this mixture of races, rather

than resulting in an inferior being, provides hybrid progeny, a mutable, more malleable species with a

rich gene pool. From this racial, ideological, cultural and biological cross-pollinization, an "alien"

consciousness is presently in the making—a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a

consciousness of the borderlands.

Una lucha de fronteras / A Struggle of Borders

Because I am mestiza,

continually walk out of one culture and into another,

because I am in all cultures at the same time,

alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro,

me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio.

Estoy norteada por todas las voces que me hablan

simultáneamente.

The impact is mental damnation—the struggle of borders— to find where you belong

along this tear calls into question, “Where do I belong?”

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 78, J.J.]

The ambivalence from the clash of voices results in mental and emotional states of perplexity.

Internal strife results in insecurity and indecisiveness. The mestiza's dual or multiple personality is

plagued by psychic restlessness. In a constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn

between ways, la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group

to another. Being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state

of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed: which collectivity does the

daughter of a darkskinned mother listen to?

El choque de un alma atrapado entre el mundo del espirita y el mundo de la tecnica a veces la deja

entullada. Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and

their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, an inner war. Like

all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or

living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of

two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural

Collision.

Identity politics solve impacts (war, rape, & violence)

Questioning our identity leads to a better future, breaking down hierarchies depends

on a new consciousness—leads to answer fundamental questions.

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 80, J.J.]

En unas pocas centurias, the future will belong to the mestiza. Because the future depends on the

breaking down of paradigms, it depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new

mythos—that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we

behave—la mestiza creates a new consciousness.

The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her a

prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her work how duality is transcended. The

answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in

healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our

thoughts. A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness is

the beginning of a long struggle, but one that could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of

violence, of war.

The “Mestiza’s”—or the mixed—are the revolutionary movement. We are the ones

who take the first step into the unknown

Anzaldúa, Scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory, 1987

[Gloria E., Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 81, J.J.]

We are the people who leap in the dark, we are the people on the knees of the gods. In our very flesh,

(r)evolution works out the clash of cultures. It makes us crazy constantly, but if the center holds, we've

made some kind of evolutionary step forward. Nuestra alma el trabajo, the opus, the great alchemical

work; spiritual mestizaje, a “morphogenesis," an inevitable unfolding. We have become the quickening

serpent movement.

Indigenous like corn, like corn, the mestiza is a product of crossbreeding, designed for preservation

under a variety of conditions. Like an ear of corn—a female seed-bearing organ—the mestiza is

tenacious, tightly wrapped in the husks of her culture. Like kernels she clings to the cob; with thick

stalks and strong brace roots, she holds tight to the earth—she will survive the crossroads.

Solvency: Mapping otherness

Mapping out power relations is a necessary prerequisite to transforming otherness to

a site of change

Braidotti, contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician, 5

*Rosi, “A Critical Cartography of Feminist Post-Postmodernism”, Australian Feminist Studies ,

Volume:20 Number 47 page 3, http://www.rosibraidotti.com/index.php/publications/digital-

publications/88-publications/digital-publications/138-a-critical-cartography-of-feminist-post-

postmodernism, PAC]

Fortunately, otherness remains also as the site of production of countersubjectivities. Feminist, post-

colonial, black, youth, gay, lesbian and transgender counter-cultures are positive examples of these

emergent subjectivities which are ‘other’ only in relation to an assumed and implicit ‘Same’. How to

disengage difference or otherness from the dialectics of Sameness is therefore the challenge.

Intersecting lines of ‘otherness’ map out the location of what used to be the ‘constitutive others’ of

the unitary subject of classical [humynism]. They mark the sexualised bodies of [womyn]; the racialised

bodies of ethnic or native others and the naturalised bodies of animals and earth others. They are the

inter-connected facets of structural otherness defined on a hierarchical scale of pejorative differences.

The historical era of globalisation is the meeting ground on which sameness and otherness or centre

and periphery confront each other and redefine their inter-relation. The changing roles of the former

‘others’ of modernity, namely [womyn], natives and natural or earth others, has turned them into

powerful sites of social and discursive transformation. Let us remember, with Foucault,11 that power is

a multi-layered concept, which covers both negative or confining methods (potestas) as well as

empowering or affirmative technologies (potentia). This means that the paths of transformation

engendered by the ‘difference engine’ of advanced capitalism are neither straight nor predictable. They

rather compose a zigzagging line of internally contradictory options. Thus, [humyn] bodies caught in

the spinning machine of multiple differences at the end of post modernity become simultaneously

disposable commodities to be vampirised and also decisive agents for political and ethical

transformation. How to tell the difference between the two modes of ‘becoming other’ is the task of

cultural and political theory and practice.

Solvency - Critical mapping is doing

Examination of the assumptions behind mapmaking is necessary to challenge

cartographic authority

Crampton Professor of Geography at Georgia State and Krygier, Professor of

Geography at Ohio Wesleyan University, 2006

*Jeremy W. and John, “An Introduction to Critical Cartography”, Acme Journal http://www.acme-

journal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf, Accessed 6/25/2014, JO]

A critique is not a project of finding fault, but an examination of the assumptions of a field of

knowledge. Its purpose is to understand and suggest alternatives to the categories of knowledge that

we use. These categories (i.e., assumptions and familiar notions) shape knowledge even as they

enable it. For example, it is often assumed that good map design must achieve “figure-ground”

separation, even though recent research on cultural differences in the perception of figure ground

reveals that non-Western viewers do not have the same reaction to figure-ground as Western viewers

(Chua et al. 2005). Critique does not seek to escape from categories but rather to show how they came

to be, and what other possibilities there are.

This sense of critique was developed by Kant, especially in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 2nd Edn.

1787). For Kant a critique is an investigation which “involves laying out and describing precisely the

claims being made, and then evaluating such claims in terms of their original meanings” (Christensen

1982: 39). Kant’s essay on the question of the Enlightenment (Kant 2001/1784) describes critical

philosophy as one in which people constantly and restlessly strive to know and to challenge authority.

The modern emphasis on critique owes a substantial amount to the Frankfurt School’s development of

critical theory. The Frankfurt School, known formally as the Institute for Social Research, was founded in

Germany in 1923 and moved to New York in 1933 when Hitler came to power. The writers most closely

associated with the school included Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert

Marcuse, and later Jurgen Habermas. Many of these writers sought to release the emancipatory

potential of a society repressed by technology, positivism and ideology. For example, Adorno argued

that capitalism, instead of withering away as Marx had predicted, had in fact become more deeply

established by co-opting the cultural realm. The mass media, by pumping out low quality films, books

and music (and today, TV or internet) substituted for people’s real needs. Instead of seeking freedom

and creativity, people were satisfied with mere emotional catharsis, and were reduced to making

judgments of value on monetary worth. Frankfurt School writers sought to dispel such harmful and

illusory ideologies by providing an emancipatory philosophy which could challenge existing power

structures.

Reflecting on Kant’s critical philosophy Michel Foucault observed that critique is not a question of

accumulating a body of knowledge, but is rather “an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which

the critique of what we are is at the one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are

imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them” (Foucault 1997: 132).

This emphasis on the historical conditions that make knowledge possible led Foucault to his

explorations of how knowledge—including knowledge that aspired to scientific rationality such as

disciplinary knowledge—was established and enabled through historically specific power relations.

Such a historical emphasis is also a part of the cartographic critique.

However, by power Foucault did not mean the same thing as the “false consciousness” of ideology in

the Frankfurt sense. For Foucault power is not a negative force that must be dispelled, nor does he

conceive of subjects as being constrained from reaching their true potential by a repressive state power

(Ingram 1994). Foucault’s conception of power was more subtle, one that emphasized the politics of

knowledge. Power did not emanate from the top of a class hierarchy, but rather was diffused

horizontally in a highly differentiated and fragmented fashion. Furthermore if power had repressive

effects it also produced subjects who act freely. The possibility of “going beyond” the limits, of

resisting, is a real one. This construction of rationality does not occur in a void however, but has been

“historically and geographically defined” (Foucault 1991: 117). Foucault’s sensitivity to geographic and

spatial aspects of rationality makes him of particular interest because he shows that many problems of

politics require spatial knowledge (Crampton and Elden 2006).

In sum then, the answer to the question “what is critique?” is that it is a politics of knowledge. First, it

examines the grounds of our decision-making knowledges; second it examines the relationship

between power and knowledge from a historical perspective; and third it resists, challenges and

sometimes overthrows our categories of thought. Critique does not have to be a deliberate political

project. If the way that we make decisions (based on knowledge) is changed, then a political

intervention has been made. Critique can therefore be both explicit and implicit. Furthermore, the

purpose of critique as a politics of knowledge, is not to say that our knowledge is not true, but that

the truth of knowledge is established under conditions that have a lot to do with power. In the next

section we elaborate on these points in the context of the cartographic critique more specifically.

Solvency – Third Space

Specifically, thirdspace reconceptualizes what it means to develop—goes beyond the

binary approach standard interpretations of the topic takes

Allen, UCLA Graduate School of Education Graduate, 1997

[Rick, 3-28-97, “What Space Makes of Us: Thirdspace, Identity Politics, and Multiculturalism.,” Paper

presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, page 16-20,

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED409409.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, KMM]

One of the dilemmas facing Thirdspace methodological development is connecting deconstructions of

the Firstspace-Secondspace duality to a radical political project of solidarity with marginalized

communities. This is especially difficult when some types of postmodernisms and poststructuralisms

have been critiqued as being politically damaging to the marginalized. For example, the more

apocalyptic postmodernisms have been attacked because neo- conservatives have used them to suggest

a state of positional relativism where any epistemological position has the same social weight as any

other (Best & Kellner, 1991; Soja, 1993). But, a view from privilege, already overdeveloped, should not

be given as much dialectical weight as a view from the margins when the privileged was created at the

expense of the marginal (Hammer & McLaren, 1991). How can a similar spatial relativism, where one

spatiality is no more problematic than another, be avoided or countered?

I would like to begin my argument by considering the possibilities of the term "development" as a spatial

metaphor. It is an interesting word because it has meanings that imply the production of both real-and-

imagined space. Development in the traditional sense of "real," or Firstspace, can mean "an occurrence,

event, or situation" or that spatial "happening" that is perceivable and has socially validated discursive

value. Development can also refer to the "real" of Firstspace in that it means "the economic and

material creation or growth of jobs, housing, education, etc..." Development also references a

Secondspace imagined spatiality in that it can mean "the cognitive or intellectual growth or structuring

of one's mind through learning." These varying definitions become interrelated and interdependent

when they are thought of as an example of the Firstspace-Secondspace duality. Development as

Firstspace is the recognition of changes that arise in Firstspace that are based on the perceived natural

and material spaces that are assumed to be unproblematic. Although Firstspace developments act as

material sites or stages for social problems, what is not questioned is why they are perceived at all, let

alone why the events themselves are read in various ways. Development as Secondspace is the changing

of the world through a universality of properly rationalized conceived space without recognition of the

maintenance of perceived space and the domination of lived space. These definitions alone hide behind

each other and mask the problems of power in social space.

However, the definition that has the most invigorating potential is the metaphor drawn from

photography that describes development as "a process for making images clear or seeable when they

were not clear or seeable before." This definition harkens back to Lefebvre's strategic use of the term

"illusion." To be able to "see" (a metaphor for perceiving reality) conceptual space must be changed. For

a magician to learn an illusion, she must learn it from another magician to perpetuate the seen, yet,

unseen mystery. As a Marxist, Lefebvre was not as concerned with repeating the illusion as he was with

creating conceptual ways to enable the audience (i.e.-the marginalized) to see through the trickery.

Lefebvre's project was then to critique Secondspace because it was the key to rethinking the double

illusion. The power of conceptual space is that it can change perceptions, and, thus, everyday spatial

practices. Those who change conceptually often describe experiences of "seeing" (i.e.-noticing,

recognizing, and validating from any sense stimuli) things that they did not notice before. As Soja argues,

the question is not whether spatialities are either real or imagined because they are always both. For

example, development is not either an occurrence or cognitive growth, it is both, and more.

The more important question is whose version of the real-and-imagined of development, or any spatial

metaphor, is conceptually dominant and how did it get to be that way? To answer this question, I will

borrow a political economy term from the debate on Thirdworld or urban economic development policy

called "underdevelopment." Underdevelopment represents a critique of the developed-undeveloped

binary in capitalistic, liberal policy. "Developed" and "undeveloped" are Firstspace descriptors that have

been used to quantify and communicate the degree of capitalistic benefit relative to economic

conditions. Some argue that material conditions are stratified according to class and that resources, as

spatial reality, need to be redistributed towards the undeveloped regions. Others claimed that people in

these undeveloped regions were poor because they lacked the knowledge to change their spatial

conditions. The concept of underdevelopment is an attempt to break this Firstspace- Secondspace

binary. Underdevelopment theory argues that capitalism actively produces undeveloped spaces in a

process of underdevelopment. This theory is premised on the notion that capitalism is a "zero-sum

game" where getting ahead necessarily means that someone else is left behind. Regions of development

are actually areas of "overdevelopment" because they grow from an over-accumulation of wealth.

Underdeveloped regions are those places that are politically and economically marginalized through

relations with dominant capitalist places (Wallerstein, 1979).

The political economy version of underdevelopment made famous by Wallerstein is still rather

Firstspatial, even though it definitely is aimed at the idealization of development policy in Secondspace.

It is a critique of how to read Firstspace material development. However, what is not always expressed

in the political economy version of underdevelopment are the sources for this conceptual shift in some

Western scholars that enabled a perceptual change of material space. In other words, what were the

origins of the Secondspatial change that was necessary for the Firstspace-Secondspace deconstruction

and reconstitution as the Thirdspatial "underdevelopment"?

The critiques of development were coming from the voices of those who were colonized and

marginalized by the power imbalances of imperial capitalism, such as the narratives developed in

postcolonial theory. The deconstruction of modernistic development metaphors came from lived

spatialities of those dominated by the double illusion. Secondspace creativity and Firstspace change

came from Thirdspace and life as lived on the margins. What was not seen at the conceptual center of

knowledge and power in development theory became "seen" as a critical spatial theory moved in from a

place of domination.4 Spatial underdevelopment is then conceptual as well as material, imagined as

well as real. Spatial underdevelopment involves a masking or silencing of voices from geohistoricaily

underdeveloped regions, not just an economic and material hardship. The conceptualizations of space

coming from subaltern lived spaces must, therefore, be brought to the center of spatial discourse if

Firstspace-Secondspace dualities are to be problematized with any rigor.

Thirdspace radically breaks down binary thinking

Allen, UCLA Graduate School of Education Graduate, 1997

[Rick, 3-28-97, “What Space Makes of Us: Thirdspace, Identity Politics, and Multiculturalism.,” Paper

presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, page 15-16,

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED409409.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, KMM]

Soja's call for the ontological importance of space in critical social theory and critical feminisms is

located in his description of Thirdspace epistemologies. Thirdspace is the "deconstruction and heuristic

reconstitution of the Firstspace-Secondspace duality." Thirdspace is a means to radically open Firstspace

and Secondspace knowledges for the purpose of creating new social possibilities. In Thirdspace, all

epistemologies must be re-written relative to the ontological assertion of space, along with new

intersectionalities with spatiality, historicity, and sociality. Although I do not have the space to include

lengthy descriptions of Thirdspace examples, I will mention that Soja (1996) argues that bell hooks'

Yearning (1990), Gyatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988), Edward Said's Orientalism (1979),

and Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) provide the best examples of what could be called

Thirdspace.

Current dualistic thinking marginalizes identities—thirdspace is key to reinsert those back into our

spatial thinking

Allen, UCLA Graduate School of Education Graduate, 1997

[Rick, 3-28-97, “What Space Makes of Us: Thirdspace, Identity Politics, and Multiculturalism.,” Paper

presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, page 20-21,

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED409409.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, KMM]

Turning to issues of identity brings the discussion back to my original question, "What does space make

of us?" Identity production is also related to the domination of lived space by conceived space. The

connection between identity and lived space makes sense if we think of identity as not just a name, but

a narrative of life as lived by those on the margins. Those who have the power to do so create dominant

versions of conceived space that matches their own lived and perceived space, and actively produce the

identity of the "Other" in the narratives that come from daily interaction with the Other. Of course, their

power is both imagined, in that it is refereed by idealized rationality, and real, in that there are material

connections and consequences. Identities are produced from the interaction between lived spaces that

are different from hegemonic conceived and perceived space. Difference in the double illusion is

"Othered" as subaltern identities. Spatial underdevelopment corresponds to the active production of

identities in territories of hegemonic domination such as barrios, ghettos, reservations, colonies, or

domestic households. Marginalized identities go beyond difference for the sake of difference; they are

representational of dominated spatialities that those who promote hegemonic modernistic spatialities

cannot readily perceive, let alone value. Discussing the production of identity then brings out issues of

spatial domination that may have been underdeveloped metaphorically or materially.

The most promising of Thirdspace methodologies brings together the critiques I have presented so far

into something called spatial praxis (Soja & Hooper, 1993). Spatial praxis gives methodological life to

what I have previously theorized as spatial underdevelopment. Spatial praxis is the combining of the

politics of identity (or location) and geohistorical underdevelopment to deconstruct and reinvigorate the

dialectic between spatial metaphor and spatial materiality. In spatial praxis, spatial metaphors

represent the linguistic aspects of Secondspace and the knowledge, space, power trialectic. The spatial

materiality of spatial praxis represents Firstspace. Together, these two parts comprise the Firstspace-

Secondspace duality to be deconstructed (but not destroyed) just as I have argued previously. What is

really different in spatial praxis is the positioning of Identity and geohistorical underdevelopment as an

initial, contingent, and strategic operationalization of Thirdspace. Since identity and underdevelopment

are so closely related to Secondspace domination, they are given a Thirdspace position in spatial praxis

so that the real-and-imagined must address spatial underdevelopment.

One could argue that this example of Thirdspace in spatial praxis is just using another version of a real-

and-imagined binary, and they would be right. However, the political question is whose version of the

real-and-imagined becomes dominant and how do we deconstruct that hegemony. This Thirdspace also

places importance on the marginalizing effects of capitalistic underdevelopment and the related

production of marginal, and, therefore, dominant identities. The spatial praxis of Thirdspace is a way to

politically reinsert the spatialities produced by domination back into the center of dominant discourses.

Spatial praxis takes as a given the poststructural and critically pragmatic notion that every conceived

space will structure marginalization. Spatial praxis is one realm of theory that addresses these concerns.

But, Thirdspace should be radically open. As spatial praxis develops more in social science discourses, a

critique of the identity-geohistorical underdevelopment binary may be developed as well.

Thirdspace breaks down hegemonic discourses of dualism the otherizes certain populations

Allen, UCLA Graduate School of Education Graduate, 1997

[Rick, 3-28-97, “What Space Makes of Us: Thirdspace, Identity Politics, and Multiculturalism.,” Paper

presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, page 22-27,

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED409409.pdf, accessed 6-30-14, KMM]

In a critical multiculturalism, the concept of hegemony is crucial to disordering oppressive rationalities

and knowledges of control. The identification of oppressive rationalities partially hinges upon a

recognition or perception of socio-cultural differences and their political significance. Through spatial

underdevelopment theory, difference can be re-imagined as being actively produced and reproduced

through the domination of lived space by conceptual space. Difference can no longer be seen as

naturally given distinctions separate from the production of space because as conceptual space changes,

so does lived space, which is the site of identity emergence and maintenance. Hegemony is maintained

through the processes of spatial underdevelopment in their material and imagined forms. Identity

production in spatial underdevelopment represents the articulation of social and spatial domination in

an ever-shifting, multiple-bordered milieu of hegemonic territories or "Othering" sites.

Counter-hegemonic projects needs to be re-imagined given the productive dimension of space in

shaping identity. Counter-hegemonic critiques must consider Thirdspace, seeking to sympathetically

deconstruct Firstspace-Secondspace binaries, such as the double illusion of modernism. Conceived

space, as the site of the mental ordering of spatiality, must be particularly scrutinized by Thirdspace

methodologies such as spatial praxis. Lived space descriptions and symbolic representations should be

given a privileged place at the center of spatial thought. Identity production and geohistorical

underdevelopment should guide conceptual attention to the margins, which are the locations of

"creativity" and social transformation.

Current counter-hegemony identity politics usually have not embraced the more Thirdspatial

postcolonial and radical feminist critiques of modernistic spatial imaginations. Unfortunately, the politics

of difference (or identity politics) has been conceptually, and therefore, perceptually constrained by the

dualism of liberal humanism and modernist identity politics (Soja & Hooper, 1993). Liberal humanism

has sought to oppose conservative, class maintaining hegemony by arguing for the belief in a universal

"we." Equality and democracy are liberal humanist technologies of control that seek to minimize the

perceived problems caused by differences in people. Difference in this sense is seen as something to be

accommodated, if not overcome. Modernist identity politics imagines binary oppressive relationships

such as masculine/feminine, capital/labor, white/black, or colonizer/colonized. It imagines a unified

subaltern group that struggles to resist and/or defeat their particular oppressor. The radical subjectivity

utilized in modernist identity politics often universalizes its own cause to the exclusion of other

marginalized groups. This homogenizing of subaltern subjectivity may be part of the conceived

cohesiveness that is believed to be necessary to overcome the oppressor.

The problem with these modernistic counter-hegemonies is that the liberal humanist/modernist identity

politics binary constructs "fragmentation" as an unwanted social development. Liberal humanists are

Secondspatial in that they believe in the adherence to universal principles as the way to combat the

problems caused by difference. If a large number of people agree that a social principle is valid, then, as

Durkheim states, it is the responsibility of individuals to give up their selfish desires and abide by

"common sense." Difference in this view is subversive if it counters dominant opinion. Arguments like

postmodernism or poststructuralism are called "fragmenting" because they are seen as disruptive to the

project of producing a unified "we" with a shared common sense. Fragmentation is a spatial metaphor

that implies that there existed a previous "we." This mythical "we" linguistically constructs

fragmentation as a political device to place blame for the material consequences related to identity

production on those discourses the critique universalizing, idealist rationalities.

Although modernist identity politics is called fragmenting, too, by liberal humanists, it still has its own

version of fragmentation that it directs at those who are perceived to share the identity of a particular

bipolar subaltern group but do not place all of their energies into the singular "revolutionary" cause. The

homogenization process involved in creating the counter-hegemonic subjectivity causes many who have

had lived experiences that are different from the dominant conceptualizations to be politically resistant.

Those who do support the cause of the singular oppressed against the singular oppressor label those

who are not supportive of the cause, but are identified as one of the oppressed, as being "fragmenting"

or as having "false consciousness." For example, the Marxist who is "not Marxist enough."

The dilemma of both modernistic counter-hegemonies is that they do not account for how their

idealized, rationalized, and totalized visions of what space should be blinds them to thinking about how

space, particularly their own conceived space, actively produces the very fragmenting that they find

subversive.5 Difference in both cases is feared and invokes spatial metaphors with negatively viewed

meanings such as fragmentation. Conceived space once again dominates lived space, and the expressed

subjugation in the form of multiple or fragmented identities is attacked.

The choices for a counter-hegemonic identity politics do not have to be constrained within this

modernistic binary. Since there are multiple dominating conceived spaces, their will always be multiple

lived spaces representing multiple identities in any individual, or for that matter, group. Also, spatial

underdevelopment and identity production are an ongoing process. So the new production of

marginalized identities needs to be figured into the conceptualization of radical identity politics. One

political view that accomplished this task is called "postmodern identity politics." As the Thirdspace of

counter-hegemonic identity politics, postmodern identity politics is "a polyvocal postmodernism that

maintains a commitment to radical social change while continuing to draw (selectively, but

sympathetically) from the most powerful critical foundations of modernist identity politics." f p. 187,

Soja, 1993 #1341 The idea is to reach out empathetically to other marginalized groups who share a

similar social and spatial oppression of geohistorical underdevelopment.

Postmodern identity politics are often critiqued as being too fragmented to be politically worthwhile. A

similar critique asks how one should know when to be modernist or postmodernist.6 Once again, the

problem is one of spatial assumptions. The term "politics" is usually associated with the term "public."

Unfortunately, the spatial imagination of most has confined public to mean the space of the nation-state

and its various spatial extensions. To act politically is to act in this particular public. However, this public

is the hegemonic spatial production of modernism. Publics can be any collection of people where views

are aired, ideas are discussed, or commitments are made. These alternative publics, or "counter-

publics," can be places where those dominated by the rationalized conceived space of the hegemonic

public can create community and foster creativity and resistance (Fraser, 1994). They are the places

where postmodernist identities can be expressed and explored, and maybe even validated.

Simultaneously, the empathy for all spatially marginalized groups can be practiced in the dominant

public sphere of the nation-state, such as voting against anti-Affirmative Action legislation such as

California's Proposition 209.

Postmodern identity politics is takes the identities that space produces and then actively develops

counter-spaces, sometimes as counter-publics, to draw from those identities in a radical, creative, and

open way. Critical pedagogists imagine the classroom as a potential counter-public site. Some say that

this type of postmodernism revels in fragmentation. It is insulting to suggest that any caring person sees

fragmentation as solely positive. What postmodern identity politics, as well as spatial praxis, offers is a

way to hold modernism morally and politically accountable for the very marginalization it produces.

Focusing on the margins or "fragments" is a way to validate lived space amongst those who share similar

spatialities and critically transform conceived and perceived space by deconstructing the monolithic

notion of a singular public and constructing counter-publics. All of this while still keeping open the

possibilities of participating in more modernistic politics.

I will conclude and summarize by addressing the question, "What would a critical multicultural

curriculum that is also spatially critical look like?" First, spatiality would be a central focus of most

readings, analyses, and discussions. In particular, the goal would be to identify dominant spatial

conceptualizations and practices, such as the double illusion, and bring marginal lived spatialities to a

privileged place. The production of marginalized identities via the social intersectionality of the real-and-

imagined spaces of racism, capitalism, and sexism should be a primary device for deconstructing

hegemonic spatialities. People should learn to identify Firstspace, Secondspace, and Thirdspace

epistemologies as helpful, heuristic categories to think critically about space, but not as dogmatic

conceived space. Thirdspace literatures such as postmodernism, postcolonialism, or radical feminism

would be commonly read. The concept of spatial underdevelopment in both its material and conceptual

expressions should be created as an important spatial trope. Spatial praxis should also be developed as

one possible Thirdspace methodology or "literacy" for interrogating a text whether spoken, written, or

other. And finally, and possibly most importantly, critical spatial theory is primarily about rethinking the

political imagination. Postmodern identity politics, or any other Thirdspatial politics, should be offered

as a new possibility for social living. If curriculum truly is an "introduction into a way of life" as Giroux

argues, then space can and must play a major role in the very nature of being critical of how hegemony

is produced and reproduced.

2AC

T/FW

AT: Substantially Increase = Quantifiable Increase

Treating the ocean as a quantifiable resource is our criticism of the SQ

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff University and Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Jon & Kimberly, Water Worlds Human Geographies of the Ocean, p. 8, J.J.]

'Seventy percent of our planet consists of oceans'. So began the proposal, drafted by Jon Anderson and

Kimberley Peters, which ultimately resulted in this book. That figure is repeated continually in the ocean

studies and marine environmentalism literature. Indeed, it is difficult to find a publication on

endangered marine nature, the significance of global shipping, the role of fisheries in the food chain, the

importance of the ocean for climate regulation, or the necessity of preserving maritime livelihoods, that

does not contain this statistic or its more precise 71% variant.1

The statistic is a compelling figure. It achieves metaphysical significance when paired with the fact that

the human body is also about 70% water. Indeed, it is so powerful that it may be having an unintended

effect of, rather than instilling concern for our 'blue planet', leading to a sense of security: If so much

of our planet is water, then why do we need to steward it as a fragile resource? Perhaps in response

to this complacency, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has recently complicated the

statistical narrative with an image that demonstrates that while the planet's surface may be 70%

ocean, the ocean, despite its depths, constitutes only .12% of the planet's volume (Figure F.l).

The USGS' reworking of the 70% figure illustrates how statistics often have multiple meanings. I would

go one step further, however, and suggest that the prevalence of both the 70% statistic and the .12%

image demonstrates how such figures can mask as much as they reveal. When one reduces the ocean

- a dynamic system that is perpetually being remade and whose edges are continually being redefined

- to a quantity (whether a seemingly large quantity like 70% or a seemingly small one like .12%), it

becomes static and undifferentiated. The ocean can then be categorized as a space of nature to be

fetishized, a space of alterity to be romanticized, or even a space beyond society to be forgotten. In

each of these formulations, the ocean is classified as an object, a space of difference with a

distinguishing ontological unity, the 'other' in a land-ocean binary.

Framework

Maps are a manifestation of social relationships behind a guise of neutral science. We

can redefine cartography—rewrite the map—to change the social structure

Harley, Director of the Office of Map History in the American Geographical Society

Collection, 89

*JB, Summer 1989, “Deconstructing the Map,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 26 No 2 , page 6-7,

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-

map?rgn=main;view=fulltext, PAC]

A second example is how the 'rules of the social order' appear to insert themselves into the smaller

codes and spaces of cartographic transcription. The history of European cartography since the

seventeenth century provides many examples of this tendency. Pick a printed or manuscript map from

the drawer almost at random and what stands out is the unfailing way its text is as much a

commentary on the social structure of a particular nation or place as it is on its topography. The map-

maker is often as busy recording the contours of feudalism, the shape of a religious hierarchy, or the

steps in the tiers of social class,39 as the topography of the physical and human landscape. Why maps

can be so convincing in this respect is that the rules of society and the rules of measurement are

mutually reinforcing in the same image. Writing of the map of Paris, surveyed in 1652 by Jacques

Gomboust, the King's engineer, Louis Marin points to "this sly strategy of simulation-dissimulation": The

knowledge and science of representation, to demonstrate the truth that its subject declares plainly,

flow nonetheless in a social and political hierarchy. The proofs of its 'theoretical' truth had to be

given, they are the recognisable signs; but the economy of these signs in their disposition on the

cartographic plane no longer obeys the rules of the order of geometry and reason but, rather, the

norms and values of the order of social and religious tradition. Only the churches and important

mansions benefit from natural signs and from the visible rapport they maintain with what they

represent. Townhouses and private homes, precisely because they are private and not public, will have

the right only to the general and common representation of an arbitrary and institutional sign, the

poorest, the most elementary (but maybe, by virtue of this, principal) of geometric elements; the point

identically reproduced in bulk.40 Once again, much like 'the rule of ethnocentrism,' this

hierarchicalization of space is not a conscious act of cartographic representation. Rather it is taken for

granted in a society that the place of the king is more important than the place of a lesser baron, that

a castle is more important than a peasant's house, that the town of an archbishop is more important

than that of a minor prelate, or that the estate of a landed gentleman is more worthy of emphasis than

that of a plain farmer. Cartography deploys its vocabulary accordingly so that it embodies a systematic

social inequality. The distinctions of class and power are engineered, reified and legitimated in the

map by means of cartographic signs. The rule seems to be 'the more powerful, the more prominent.'

To those who have strength in the world shall be added strength in the map. Using all the tricks of the

cartographic trade — size of symbol, thickness of line, height of lettering, hatching and shading, the

addition of color — we can trace this reinforcing tendency in innumerable European maps. We can

begin to see how maps, like art, become a mechanism "for defining social relationships, sustaining

social rules, and strengthening social values."41 In the case of both these examples of rules, the point I

am making is that the rules operate both within and beyond the orderly structures of classification

and measurement. They go beyond the stated purposes of cartography. Much of the power of the

map, as a representation of social geography, is that it operates behind a mask of a seemingly neutral

science. It hides and denies its social dimensions at the same time as it legitimates. Yet whichever way

we look at it the rules of society will surface. They have ensured that maps are at least as much an

image of the social order as they are a measurement of the phenomenal world of objects.

Framework: Debate is mapping

Debate is inherently a cartographical practice, but like with any maps, there’s more

than an objective truth in our arguments. Rather we must recognize that arguments

are manifested through the relationships people have with them

Kitchin, National University of Ireland, Department of Geography, Dodge, University of

Manchester, Department of Geography, 7

*Rob, Martin, “Rethinking maps,” Progress in Human Geography, Volume: 31 Number: 3, page

7-9, http://eprints.nuim.ie/2755/1/RK_Rethinkingmaps.pdf, PAC]

Starting from a position of having specialized tools (scientific instruments or software)¶ and resources

(boundary and attribute data,¶ previously mapped information), and a degree¶ of knowledge,

experience and skills, John¶ works to create a map. The map thus emerges¶ through a set of iterative

and citational practices – of employing certain techniques¶ that build on and cite previous plottings or

previous work (other spatial representations) or¶ cartographic ur-forms (standardized forms of¶

representation). This process is choreographed to a certain degree, shaped by the scientific culture of

conventions, standards,¶ rules, techniques, philosophy (its ontic knowedge), and so on, but is not

determined and¶ essential. Rather, instead of there being a teleological inevitability in how the map is

conlook, the map is contingent and relational in¶ its production through the decisions made by¶ John

with respect to what attributes are¶ mapped, their classification, the scale, the¶ orientation, the colour

scheme, labelling,¶ intended message, and so on, and the fact that¶ the construction is enacted

through affective,¶ reflexive, habitual practices that remain outside cognitive reflection. Important

here is the¶ idea of play – of ‘playing’ with the possibilities¶ of how the map will become, how it will

be¶ remade by its future makers – and of arbitrariness, of unconscious and affective design.¶ John thus

experiments with different colour¶ schemes, different forms of classification, and¶ differing scales to map

the same data. Making¶ maps then is inherently creative – it can be¶ nothing else; and maps emerge

in process For example, using mapping software the¶ first stage might be to plot administrative¶

boundaries. In doing so, decisions have to be¶ made in terms of the administrative units to¶ use

(postcodes, enumeration areas, electoral¶ divisions, counties, and so on), and the scale¶ of the display.

Next, these units need to be¶ populated with data. To be able to do this the¶ data need to allocated to a

zone and sorted¶ into categories that differentiate rates of population change. There are technical

solutions¶ to classification that can be performed using¶ specialized algorithms. However, John still¶

needs to determine which algorithm is most¶ suitable given the structure of the data (eg, to¶ use the

default setting, choosing fixed intervals, mean standard deviation, percentiles,¶ natural breaks and so

on). These technical¶ solutions are not fixed and essential in their¶ practice but are also subject to play

and precognitive judgement through the evaluation¶ of different algorithms in order to determine¶

which work ‘best’. Alternatively, the classification can be devised through a manual, iterative playing

with the data in terms of class¶ boundaries, number of classes, and so on¶ (which in fact was the case

with Figure 1).¶ Both cases, technical and manual, consist of¶ practice (of running the algorithm or

playing¶ with the data), and these practices vary over¶ time, by context, and across people. In terms¶ of

the visual display, a colour scheme needs to¶ be devised. Similarly, there are technical soluRobinson et

al., 1995);3 in other cases the¶ colour ramp is chosen by the cartographer.¶ Finally, there are

considerations concerning¶ where the legend appears, whether labels¶ appear on the map and where,

and so on.¶ While some of these practices seem prosaic,¶ the procession of decisions and actions¶

‘grows’ the map. Each might seem banal or¶ trivial, but their sum – the culmination of a set¶ of

practices – creates a spatial representation¶ that John understands as a map (and believes¶ that others

will accept as a workable map¶ based upon their knowledge and experience¶ as to what constitutes a

map).¶ When a spatial representation understood¶ as a map is printed for inclusion in a policy¶

document (see Figure 1), for example, we¶ would argue that its creation is not complete¶ – it is not

ontologically secure as a map.¶ Although it has the appearance of an¶ immutable mobile – its knowledge

and message fixed and portable because it can be read¶ by anyone understanding how maps work – it¶

remains mutable, remade every time it is¶ employed. Like a street geometrically defined¶ by urban

planning, and created by urban planners, is transformed into place by walkers (de¶ Certeau, 1984), a

spatial representation created by cartographers (the coloured ink on¶ the paper) is transformed into a

map by individuals. As each walker experiences the¶ street differently, each person engaging with¶ 8

Progress in Human Geography 31(3)a spatial representation beckons a different¶ map into being. Each

brings it into their own¶ milieu, framed by their knowledge, skills and¶ spatial experience, in this case

of Ireland and¶ Irish social history. For someone familiar with¶ the geography of Ireland, their ability to¶

remake the map in a way that allows them to¶ articulate an analysis of the data is likely to be¶ far

superior to someone unfamiliar with the¶ pattern of settlement (to know what the¶ towns are, what

county or local authority¶ area they reside in, what their social and economic history is, their physical

geography is,¶ and so on). For someone who does not¶ understand the concept of thematic mapping¶

or classification schemes, again the map will¶ be bought into being differently to people¶ who do,

who will ask different questions of¶ the data and how it is displayed. While all¶ people who

understand the concept of a map¶ beckon a map into being, there is variability in¶ the ability of people

to mobilize the representation and to solve particular problems.¶ Moreover, the beckoning of the map

generates a new, imaginative geography (an¶ ordered, rationale, calculated geography) for¶ each person,

that of the spatial distribution of¶ population change between the 1996 and¶ 2002 census.

Framework: Aff prior question to education

Framework’s claims of knowledge are flawed—objective truths don’t exist and only

through deconstruction can we reach good knowledge production

Crampton, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 39-40, PAC]

A related idea is that critical mapping (cartography and GIS) examines the¶ relationship of knowledge

with power. What are the underpinning assumptions that¶ help to govern knowledge? That is, what

rationalities are in play? The reason many¶ critical mappers and critical geographers think this is

important is because these¶ rationalities shape and form the subject of the map, that is, how the map

helps oppress,¶ subjugate, or subjectify individuals and populations (Wood and Krygier 2009).¶ To look

at the relationship of power and knowledge therefore is not to claim that¶ “knowledge is power” or

that might makes right. What it does say is that what we¶ know is affected by relationships of power:

some ways of knowing are deemed to¶ be better than other ways of knowing, and therefore it is

“easier” for us to know¶ things in certain modes rather than others. Which ways? Well, it depends on

what¶ historical time period you’re looking at. Today, the scientific mode of knowledge is¶

predominant. For a critical mapper, the objective is not to over-turn this way of¶ knowing (as some

scientists often believe) but to ask how it has come to be so powerful (perhaps as a historical

investigation) and to ask what the implications¶ are of this knowledge and whether or not alternative

ways of knowing are possible.¶ Because the latter question is sometimes framed as a critique of the

limitations of¶ scientific knowledge, or of its negative effects, some writers who identify with the¶

scientific mode of knowledge have assumed that this kind of critique will usher in¶ relativism. By this

they claim that all ideas will become relatively acceptable;¶ opening the flood-gates to non-scientific

knowledge such as creationism, intelligent¶ design, or worse, to the politicization of knowledge (e.g.,

to the denial of global¶ climate change, or opposition to experimental stem cell research, etc.).¶ These

disputes are long-standing and will not be resolved here. One point to¶ bear in mind however is the

understanding of critical researchers that knowledge¶ can never come in an unpoliticized form,

because as mentioned above they see knowledge¶ as situated within relationships of power.¶ It is

significant that the word “discipline” has more than one meaning. In addition¶ to referring to a body of

knowledge such as geography, it also means the practice¶ of learning (a related word is “pupil”) and from

that idea keeping order and control¶ – in other words, power. Such order and control is what critical

mapping attempts¶ to deconstruct – in what way is it ordered? For whose benefit? Is it possible to

conceive¶ of mappings that are outside the control of the prevailing discipline?

Science Good/Objective

AT: Maps are Objective

Must break the false perception of maps as objective science

Harley, Director of the Office of Map History in the American Geographical Society

Collection, 89

*JB, Summer 1989, “Deconstructing the Map,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 26 No 2 , page 1-2,

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-

map?rgn=main;view=fulltext, PAC]

My basic argument in this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we

interpret the nature of cartography. For historians of cartography, I believe a major roadblock to

understanding is that we still accept uncritically the broad consensus, with relatively few dissenting

voices, of what cartographers tell us maps are supposed to be. In particular, we often tend to work

from the premise that mappers engage in an unquestionably 'scientific' or 'objective' form of

knowledge creation. Of course, cartographers believe they have to say this to remain credible but

historians do not have that obligation. It is better for us to begin from the premise that cartography is

seldom what cartographers say it is.

As they embrace computer-assisted methods and Geographical Information Systems, the scientistic

rhetoric of map makers is becoming more strident. The 'culture of technics' is everywhere rampant.

We are told that the journal now named The American Cartographer will become Cartography and

Geographical Information Systems. Or, in a strangely ambivalent gesture toward the nature of maps,

the British Cartographic Society proposes that there should be two definitions of cartography, "one

for professional cartographers and the other for the public at large." A definition "for use in

communication with the general public" would be "Cartography is the art, science and technology of

making maps": that for 'practicing cartographers' would be "Cartography is the science and technology

of analyzing and interpreting geographic relationships, and communicating the results by means of

maps."3¶ Many may find it surprising that 'art' no longer exists in 'professional' cartography. In the

present context, however, these signs of ontological schizophrenia can also be read as reflecting an

urgent need to rethink the nature of maps from different perspectives. The question arises as to

whether the notion of a progressive science is a myth partly created by cartographers in the course of

their own professional development. I suggest that it has been accepted too uncritically by a wider

public and by other scholars who work with maps.4 For those concerned with the history of maps it is

especially timely that we challenge the cartographer's assumptions. Indeed, if the history of

cartography is to grow as an interdisciplinary subject among the humanities and social sciences, new

ideas are essential.

Status quo epistemology of what the map represents is problematic – the aff is key to

break down these social hierarchies and instead help us read in-between the lines of

ocean exploration

Harley, Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee,

Cartographer, and Map Historian at the Universities of Birmingham, 89

[John Brian, Spring 1989, MPublishing, University of Michigan Library, “Deconstructing the

Map,” Reprinted from Cartographica, v. 26, n. 2 (Spring 1989), 1-20., accessed 6-25-14, J.J.]

The notion of deconstruction [6] is also a password for the postmodern enterprise. Deconstructionist

strategies can now be found not only in philosophy but also in localized disciplines, especially in

literature, and in other subjects such as architecture, planning and, more recently, geography. [7] I shall

specifically use a deconstructionist tactic to break the assumed link between reality and

representation which has dominated cartographic thinking, has led it in the pathway of 'normal

science' since the Enlightenment, and has also provided a ready-made and 'taken for granted'

epistemology for the history of cartography. The objective is to suggest that an alternative

epistemology, rooted in social theory rather than in scientific positivism, is more appropriate to the

history of cartography. It will be shown that even 'scientific' maps are a product not only of "the rules of

the order of geometry and reason but also of the "norms and values of the order of social ... tradition."

[8] Our task is to search for the social forces that have structured cartography and to locate the

presence of power—and its effects—in all map knowledge. The ideas in this particular essay owe most

to writings by Foucault and Derrida. My approach is deliberately eclectic because in some respects the

theoretical positions of these two authors are incompatible. Foucault anchors texts in socio-political

realities and constructs systems for organizing knowledge of the kind that Derrida loves to dismantle. [9]

But even so, by combining different ideas on a new terrain, it may be possible to devise a scheme of

social theory with which we can begin to interrogate the hidden agendas of cartography. Such a scheme

offers no 'solution' to an historical interpretation of the cartographic record, nor a precise method or set

of techniques, but as a broad strategy it may help to locate some of the fundamental forces that have

driven map-making in both European and non-European societies. From Foucault's writings, the key

revelation has been the omnipresence of power in all knowledge, even though that power is invisible or

implied, including the particular knowledge encoded in maps and atlases. Derrida's notion of the

rhetoricity of all texts has been no less a challenge. [10] It demands a search for metaphor and rhetoric

in maps where previously scholars had found only measurement and topography. Its central question is

reminiscent of Korzybski's much older dictum "The map is not the territory" [11] but deconstruction

goes further to bring the issue of how the map represents place into much sharper focus.

Deconstruction urges us to read between the lines of the map—"in the margins of the text"—and

through its tropes to discover the silences and contradictions that challenge the apparent honesty of

the image. We begin to learn that cartographic facts are only facts within a specific cultural perspective.

We start to understand how maps, like art, far from being "a transparent opening to the world," are but

"a particular human way of looking at the world." [12] In pursuing this strategy I shall develop three

threads of argument. First, I shall examine the discourse of cartography in the light of some of Foucault's

ideas about the play of rules within discursive formations. Second, drawing on one of Derrida's central

positions I will examine the textuality of maps and, in particular, their rhetorical dimension. Third,

returning to Foucault, I will consider how maps work in society as a form of power-knowledge.

Need ontological exploration and epistemological critique of claims to objectivity

Harley, American Geographical Society, Office of Map History, Director, 90

*JB, Summer 1989, “Cartography, ethics and social theory,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 27 No 2 , page 8-9,

PAC]

As far as the history of maps is concerned (my standpoint), the ontological exploration is also an

epistemological critique. It leads to questions: what is the nature, and what are the grounds, the

limits, and the criteria by which we write and we judge the writing of cartographic history? Elsewhere

David Woodward and I have argued that we need to become more self conscious about the historical

tradition of which we are part.36¶ It may now be stressed, though, that in achieving these ends, links

with postmodern scholarship do not entail a retreat from critical standards nor a substitution of

superficiality for depth. Indeed, an engagement with postmodernist thinking can only equip us to

unmask the very duplicity of text that Fraser Taylor refers to in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.37¶ The

point I am making is that the act of deconstruction is a way of avoiding the myths that sometimes drive

cartographic history. Thus a leading American cartographer, belonging to the 'Never Doubt it's Science'

school of thinking, writes in a Preface to an officially sponsored ICA publication, Cartographical

Innovations, that "cartography now has an indispensable addition to its long and glorious history."38¶

We can glimpse here the unconscious process of myth-making, through which the invention of a

progressive positivist past is used to justify a progressive positivist present.39

In the responses to my paper a number of suggestions were made as to how we might write a

different sort of history of cartography. Michael Blakemore writes that "there may indeed be a case for

more biography ... Too much of the history of cartography is sanitized by the removal of personality and

motive."40 Certainly it is not my intention to banish cartographers or their institutional contexts from

the process of mapping,41¶ and I agree with him that we need to know far more about the 'extra-

scientific' factors that have contributed to the development of cartography and recently GIS as a

discipline. In the words of one philosopher of science such factors include "the political infighting, the

namecalling, the parody and ridicule, the arrogance, elitism, and raw use of power."42 But at the same

time, there are dangers in merely compiling 'interesting biographies' or oral reminiscences from grand

old cartographers that could result more in canonization than criticism.43¶ Any self-respecting history

must systematically embrace the structures or contexts within which individuals acted to produce

their maps. This 'contextualization of representation' is a thread that runs through a wide spectrum of

historical scholarship. For instance, iconology seeks to place the image or text into the matrix of thought

of the society that created it;44 realism, as understood by historians of science, assumes that there are

unseen forces that both influence, and are influenced by, the actions of individuals;45 structuration

theory is concerned with reciprocal interaction of agents and structures in society;46¶ and hermeneutics

pursues the meaning of texts within a wider context of conventions and assumption.47¶ To cite these is

not an attempt to obfuscate the argument with yet more arcane theories but to reinforce the point that

there is already a territory of common ground extending across disciplines. All sorts of scholars with

seemingly different philosophical perspectives are converging on the view that knowledge is a social

product, a matter of dialogue between different versions of the world, including different...

ideologies, and modes of representations. The notion that there is 'a' scientific method so flexible and

capacious that it can contain all these differences and adjudicate among them is a handy ideology for

the scientist... committed to the authority of science, but it seems mistaken in theory and practice.48

My worry is that while other disciplines are broadening their perspectives, developments in

cartography have tended to narrow them, at least until very recently.49¶ International practice in this

respect is varied but cartography is often defined to exclude the processes of data collection in

mapmaking, such as land and hydrographic surveying, aerial photography, and, most recently, remote

sensing.50¶ In a widely used textbook in the United States cartography is defined as "any activity in

which the presentation and use of maps is a matter of basic concern"51¶ but other texts suggest a yet

narrower focus with design and production of thematic maps gaining ground in the academic curriculum

at the expense of other types of maps including the products of national survey organizations.52

Cartography has lost its hold on the lived-in world. Matthew Edney is thus right to observe that

surveying — or indeed other agents of information gathering — cannot be excluded either from

cartographic history or from the study of contemporary mapping.53¶ Looking back over developments

since the 1960s, it is clear that it is this divorce between the social relevance of map content and the

technology of map-making that underlies the present crisis of representation in cartography and the

history of cartography. The shift of focus in cartography, almost exclusively to the technical side, may

in part have been a practical necessity — a matter of survival — but it also reflected a conscious

political strategy. Cartography was to acquire the status of a sub-science. Yet, it is arguable that the

search for institutional power lost, rather than gained, status for cartography in the scientific

community. How many other 'sciences' are merely manipulators and generalizers of other people's

data? The severing of links with the world one purports to represent is no less than abdication,

intellectual as well as ethical. The adoption of new technologies can perhaps reverse the trend by

restoring some links between the 'real' world and the image but it has to be recognized that the hard

decisions about social content have already been made long before the substance of the map arrives in

the cartographer's office. Whether the end product is a draft map or a digital tape, the power game

over just what is to be privileged in the world is already largely over for the cartographer.

AT: GIS Good

Not questioning the map and exploration leads to an acceptance that the map is a

fact, not a process—leads to a legitimacy of unacceptable parts of the squo

Winlow, Cultural and Historical Geographer at Bath Spa University, 2006

*Heather, March 1, 2006, “Mapping Moral Geographies: W. Z. Ripley’s Races of Europe and the

United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, EBSCOhost Academic

Search Complete, accessed 6-25-14, J.J.]

Harley’s work on the deconstruction of the map (now well known among geographers) provides some

means of understanding how the power of the map was harnessed to legitimize and reinforce racial

taxonomies. Maps are often regarded as neutral and scientific and are seen as ‘‘mirrors of nature’’

accurately reflecting the world (Harley 1992, 234). The fact that maps became an acceptable part of

academic discourse meant that their legitimacy went unquestioned for many years. It is now widely

acknowledged among human geographers that maps are ‘‘cultural texts’’ reflecting the wider social,

cultural, and political milieu of society. Harley, Wood (1993), Pickles (1992, 1995, 2004), and Crampton

(2001) have urged that cartographers need to reevaluate mapping within this context. Pickles (1995,

2004) and Crampton (2001, 2003) have further emphasized the need for ongoing research agendas in

critical cartography in relation to continuing technological developments. The development of

scientific cartography since the postwar period, through for example geographic information systems

(GIS), has meant that the social and cultural production of maps continues to be ‘‘written out’’ (Pickles

2004, 280).2

AT: Politicized Mapping Bad

Non unique - Mapping and politics are inseparable Crampton, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 9, PAC]

One might register a few problems with both of these viewpoints however. It is noticeable that the

second viewpoint, that of technology being non-essential or “neutral,” often crops up when a new

technology appears and people are thinking about it for the first time. It’s as if people want to try and

get things straight in their mind¶ and that this can be done by considering each application “before” or

outside of¶ untoward influence. Bringing in politics only serves to muddy the waters.¶ The problem with

these ideas is that they miss the point. Even casting a cursory glance at the history of cartography

should lead us to suspect that mapping and maps have a whole series of engagements in politics,

propaganda, crime and public¶ health, imperialist boundary-making, community activism, the nation-

state, cyberspace,¶ and the internet. That is, mapping has a politics. It is hard to imagine mapping that

does not in some way or other involve politics, mapping is itself a political act. As a politics of

mapping, critical cartography and GIS question what kinds of people and objects are formed through

mapping. As the Canadian philosopher¶ Ian Hacking puts it, how are people made up (Hacking 2002)?

This is a question¶ about how categories of knowledge are derived and applied, a question as old as¶ Kant

and as contemporary as racism.¶ Maps produce knowledge in specific ways and with specific categories

that then have effects (i.e., they deploy power). Categories are useful, but at the same time they

encourage some ways of being and not others. Often, some ways of being are accepted¶ as somehow

typical and are called “normal,” while others are called “abnormal.”¶ Then there is a tendency to try and

correct, eliminate, or manage the abnormal.

AT: Objective Mapping Good

‘Objective’ Maps lock in technocracy - Accepting maps as absolute truths gives them

their authority to shape the world. Maps appear to have objective power because we

allow them to—discourse key

Zubrow, University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment Research

Associate, 2003

*Alexis, June, “Mapping Tension: Remote Sensing and the Production of a Statewide Land Cover Map,”

Human Ecology, Vol. 31, No. 2, page 281-307, JO]

The WISCLAND1 map as representation seems all encompassing, almost seductive in the singular and

complete story it tells about the state. At every point, we know the one and only identity of the land:

ambiguity has been erased. Since this story is so powerful, how can alternative views be seen? The view

of the map as a snapshot or even as a means of transmitting knowledge from "reality" to the reader via

the cartographer has been criticized by many in the geographic and cartographic community (Crampton,

2001; Harley, 1989a, 1989b; Turnbull, 1993; Wood, 1992). However, maps are no longer seen as

neutral arbiters of the truth. They are seen as representations that systematically establish their own

authority. Authority is established through the extensive network of individuals, institutions, and

technologies that are brought to bear to construct the land cover map. Everything from experts

(professors, technicians, graduate students), to satellite instrumentation, to government bureaucracies

(NASA, Wisconsm State Cartographer's Office, DNR, etc), to processing technologies are part of the

chain of events that produces the map. These multiple scientific and governmental organizations

imbue the map with authority.

Instead of being a singular presentation (from the cartographer to the reader), maps exist through

discourse (Crampton, 2001; Harley, 1989a). Different readers bring varying interpretations and

expectations to the use of the map. We can imagine three hypothetical readers: a remote sensing

scientist, a land manager, and an ecologist. The remote sensing scientist might see a patch of red pine

on the map as a defined duster in spectral space, primarily indicated by its uniform reflectance in the

near infrared bands. A land manager may see this same patch as a monoculture forest that can be

either harvested or managed through a series of common techniques. The ecologist may see the red

pines as the canopy overshadowing a diverse ecosystem characterized by undergrowth and soil

conditions. All three are presented with the same data, but through their own interaction with the data,

they ostensibly create three different maps: a map of reflectance, of management, and of

heterogeneous ecosystems.

Critiques

2AC – Perm

Our critique pushes the boundaries of epistemological comfort zones allowing for

interaction from inside and outside—we can within and outside the system Crampton, University of Kentucky, Geography, Associate Professor, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 178-179, PAC]

The second step is to put this critique into practice. Therefore this book is written, as best as I can, in a

critical spirit. But from whence is it launched? Here I have to acknowledge my own positionality as

someone who “does” critical cartography and GIS. But this “here” is hard to locate; I exist between

two worlds in a kind of exile (Said 2000), not only because of my British background but because I have

lived in America for over 20 years. As Said experienced, there is still a sense of alienation from one’s

adopted country that cannot be shaken off. But this is doubled, or mirrored, by the fact that I also sit

somewhat uneasily between the two worlds of critical social theory and mapping/GIS. There is a very

real danger and actuality of being dismissed by both sides, my theoretic qualifications are never

sufficient for critical geographers, but are too sufficient for GIS users. This is not to claim an obscure

“outsider” status; obviously I occupy a specific and privileged intellectual position. But neither is it

truly an insider status; for many academics, writers, poets, and artists their degree of freedom is highly

constrained and surveilled, and not just in other countries but also in the United States. What I

experience is something like a voice from the edges, a question of belonging. Edward Said in his

lifetime was at various times accused of being both too close to the Palestinian cause and of not being

“authentically” Palestinian. As is perhaps the case for many people, I retain both a proximity to and a

distance from the subject under discussion. And I think it is the same for a practice of critique.

So in this book I have tried to act as a kind of translator, believing that this would be most appealing to

readers who find themselves, not quite comfortably, in one or more camps. This kind of “shuttle

diplomacy” might act as a way of bringing thought to bear on itself, and of learning to think differently.

Every translation is after all an invitation for a re-translation. Like many students I encounter, you might

find that you occupy several positions at once in Figure 1.1. Perhaps you are attracted to the possibility

of acquiring a recognized GIS Certificate, but also the possibilities of bottom-up user-produced maps.

The clash of motives here may usefully spark that questioning at the heart of critical practice.

If we recall the three principles of critical geography outlined earlier, that is, it is oppositional, it is

activist /practical, and it is embedded in critical theory, then a number of chapters attempt to put

these principles into practice. For this book I chose three topics which seem to me to be important, and

in which GIS andcartography play significant and problematic roles. These are governing with maps

(Chapter 6), geosurveillance (Chapter 9), and the construction of race (Chapter 11). Other chapters,

speaking to other issues, are possible and even necessary. That is the flaw in this book or any book that

is also the opening for further seeking.

If we agree with David Harvey that “cartography is a major structural pillar of all forms of geographical

knowledge” (discussed below) then one of the first things we will want to know is the nature of the

forms of knowledge produced for these three domains. A critical approach will also want to

problematize these areas, to work through their implications, contradictions, assumptions,

historicities, and deployments. Thirdly, I have tried to situate both the source and the target of critical

cartography and GIS. Any account which tells the story from a purely disciplinary perspective will, it

seems to me, omit some of the most interesting and radical practices of that critique. The fact is that

mapping today is escaping the discipline. The rise of “people-powered mapping” and the geoweb at

the same time that we have seen the rise of the political “netroots” and people-powered politics is not

coincidental. They stem from the same cause and desire to create alternative forms of expression

beyond those encompassed by the traditional power-holders (whether the geographical knowledge

elites or Big Media). Critical cartography and GIS then, does an end-run around the accreted power

structures such as academic experts,textbooks, and official “bodies of knowledge.” In Chapter 12 for

example, I tried to trace some of these non-disciplinary and non-academic critiques in the context of

map art and the poetics of space.

In order to achieve its goals must critique place itself on the “outside?” If much critique is reflexive

and internal the degree to which one can oppose from within is not an uncontroversial one. For some,

opposition can only take place from the outside, from a purer position, detached and uncorrupted.

Work within the system will only lead to becoming a part of the system, becoming co-opted. For others

this very claim for detachment, of escape from the object of analysis, is only another sign of the

impossibility of escape from the power relations of mapping and GIS. Again this is a question of

positionality, and you may find yourself both within and outside the system at different times. I know I

do.

Our aff lines up with your kritik—investigating truth claims enables the alternative to

exist and frames the debate

Crampton, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 15, PAC]

This questioning attitude is not unrelated to the question of power, because¶ it asks “what is an

authority?” and “who shall have authority?” The church? The¶ military? The government? These

questions are political ones, and indicate that¶ critique, as well as asking about the unexamined

assumptions behind our practices,¶ can also therefore open up other ways of doing things. It asks “well,

we seem to be¶ doing it this way, but do we have to? Isn’t there an alternative?”¶ To return to

Foucault:¶ I will say that critique is the movement through which the subject gives itself the right¶ to

question truth concerning its power effects and to question power about its discourses¶ of truth.

Critique will be the art of voluntary inservitude, or reflective indocility.¶ The essential function of critique

would be that of desubjectification in the game of¶ what one could call, in a word, the politics of truth.

(Foucault 1997b: 32 translation¶ modified by Eribon 2004)¶ In other words critique is a political practice

of questioning and resisting (“voluntary¶ inservitude”!) what we know in order to open up other ways of

knowing.¶ I dwell on these points here because of another misunderstanding about critical¶

cartography and GIS which has sometimes characterized them as purely rejectionist.¶ For example,

critique is sometimes described as if it rejected all forms of knowledge¶ or truth. The point though is not

to reject, but to carefully consider the truth¶ claims of maps and GIS (and there are a lot of such

claims, as we shall see, beginning¶ with the idea that the map is a natural reflection of the landscape). In

other¶ words, knowledge does not just exist “out there” but is created and then is privileged¶ by

being divided between truth and falsity. How truth comes to dominate is¶ due to some fairly specific

rules. Many of these rules have geographic centers, or¶ occur at particular points in time. Critique can

uncover these rules and the times¶ and spaces in which they occur.

AT: USFG Bad

We must understand the complex meaning of the map and the process that creates

them as well as the activity woven in between them

Casino, Professor of Geography and Development at College of Social and Behavioral

Sciences, & Hanna, Department of Geography Chair and Professor at University of

Mary Washington, 2006

*Vincent J. Del & Stephen P., 2006, “Beyond The ‘Binaries’: A Methodological Intervention for

Interrogating Maps as Representational Practices,” ACME, 4 (1), http://www.acme-

journal.org/vol4/VDCSPH.pdf?origin=publication_detail, accessed 6-25-14, J.J.]

Maps are thus not simply representations of particular contexts, places, and times. They are mobile

subjects, infused with meaning through contested, complex, intertextual, and interrelated sets of

socio-spatial practices. As Deleuze and Guarttari suggest, “the map has multiple entryways” (ibid., 12)

and a myriad number of possibilities because it operates at the margin and center simultaneously.

Maps are also not, as some may argue (e.g., Harley, 1989), fixed at the moment of production, a result

of the hegemonic authority embedded by the mapmaker in/on the representation. Thus, while maps

may be infused with power, and thus ripe for deconstruction, it is not enough to demythologize the

map (c.f., Sparke, 1995). Instead, maps ought to be theorized as processes, “detachable, reversible,

susceptible to constant modification.” It is therefore appropriate to say that maps, as representations,

“work” (Wood, 1992). As we contend, representations, such as maps, work because “they help make

connections to other representations and to other experienced spaces” (Hanna et al., 2004, 464)

suggesting that maps do, indeed, provide multiple entryways into how they are produced and

consumed as well as how they are used, interpreted, and constituted.

AT: Map K Links (Managerialism, etc Ks)

The creation of maps shapes reality as much as it reflects what it represents

Crampton Professor of Geography at Georgia State and Krygier, Professor of

Geography at Ohio Wesleyan University, 2006

*Jeremy W. and John, “An Introduction to Critical Cartography”, Acme Journal http://www.acme-

journal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf, Accessed 6/25/2014, JO]

The theoretical critique of cartography addresses post-war academic cartography's search for ever

belter and more veridical representations of a pre- existing reality. But instead of participating in this

search, critical cartography assumes that maps make reality as much as they represent it. Perhaps

John Pickles expresses this best when he says: instead of focusing on how we can map the subject...[we

could] focus on the ways in which mapping and the cartographic gaze have coded subjects and

produced identities (Pickles 2004: 12).

Pickles rethinks mapping as the production of space, geography, place and territory as well as the

political identities people have who inhabit and make up these spaces (Pickles 1991, 1995). Maps are

active; they actively construct knowledge, they exercise power and they can be a powerful means of

promoting social change.

Map non-linearity allows multiple readings

Stallmann Freelance Cartographer and GIS analyst, ‘12

(Timothy, 2012, Alternative Cartographies: Building Collective Power, p. 73-74, Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Casas-Cortes and Cobarrubias emphasize the non-linearity of map-reading, pointing out that maps

have no definite beginning or end, and that therefore multiple map viewers can follow different paths

through the same map (and because they don’t have to turn pages to do so, it is easy for many readers

to read one map at the same time). As a whole, written texts have a tendency to be more linear than

maps do. Certainly, particularly at higher levels of organization (whole chapters, sections), written works

can have a non-linear structure, although few do. Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, cited at

the beginning of this section, is one example of a written work which is intended to be read non-linearly.

Except for experimental works of fiction or poetry, however, text tends to be read linearly within

sentences or paragraphs, even if sections or chapters can be re-arranged. Moreover, except in a few

isolated cases, removing or changing several words in a sentence or several sentences in a paragraph

changes the meaning drastically or even renders that sect ion of writing nonsense. In contrast, it is fairly

easy to design maps which contain a lot of information but in which the meaningfulness of different

sections of the page are not dependent on each other. Thus maps can allow for a multiplicity of

different readings, opening up a space of possibility wherein each person who interacts with the map

finds something which resonates with their own story.

AT: Environmental Managerialism Link

The ocean is a unique space of alternate ordering that enables the understanding of

broader structures

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2009

*Philip E., “Oceans,” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography,

http://philsteinberg.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/iehg.pdf, accessed 6/27/14 JO]

Amidst these conflicts (and in the wake of past attempts to solve them through the spatial fix of single-use

zonation), the ocean is a space that leads one to question the efficacy of rationalist planning

paradigms. It likely is no coincidence that two of the works of geophilosophy most frequently cited by

human geographers make reference to the ocean as a space of alternative sociospatial formations. In

One Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1988) write, "The sea is a smooth space par

excellence," (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988) while Michel Foucault (1986), in Of Other Spaces, writes, "The ship is

the heterotopia par excellence" (Foucault, 1986: 22—27). In both cases, the allusions to the ocean as a

space of alternate ordering are metaphorical, but, like all metaphors, they gain some of their power

because they resonate with what is known about the material conditions of the entity being

referenced. Thus, for human geographers, the ocean, long ignored or, at best, viewed as an arena

within which social actors encounter one another or nature, now is seen as a space of society, and, as

a space of society, the ocean has come into its own in human geography as a space that one can 'think

with' as one attempts to understand broader structures, processes, and potentialities - on- and off-

shore.

AT: Env Managerialism/Tech Progress Ks

Status quo cartography is a manifestation of modern epistemology. Subjective

relationships are thrown out in the name of accuracy and scientific progress. This

leads to an ethic of exclusion and logic of dichotomies that ignores the full truth

Harley, American Geographical Society, Office of Map History, Director, 89

*JB, Spring 1989, “Deconstructing the Map,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 26 No 2,

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-

map?rgn=main;view=fulltext page 3-5, PAC]

The first set of cartographic rules can thus be defined in terms of a scientific epistemology. From at

least the seventeenth century onward, European mapmakers and map users have increasingly

promoted a standard scientific model of knowledge and cognition. The object of mapping is to

produce a 'correct' relational model of the terrain. Its assumptions are that the objects in the world to

be mapped are real and objective, and that they enjoy an existence independent of the cartographer;

that their reality can be expressed in mathematical terms; that systematic observation and

measurement offer the only route to cartographic truth; and that this truth can be independently

verified.17. The procedures of both surveying and map construction came to share strategies similar to

those in science in general: cartography also documents a history of more precise instrumentation and

measurement; increasingly complex classifications of its knowledge and a proliferation of signs for its

representation; and, especially from the nineteenth century onward, the growth of institutions and a

'professional' literature designed to monitor the application and propagation of the rules. l8¶

Moreover, although cartographers have continued to pay lip service to the 'art and science' of

mapmaking,19¶ art, as we have seen, is being edged off the map. It has often been accorded a cosmetic

rather than a central role in cartographic communication.20¶ Even philosophers of visual communication

— such as Arnheim, Eco, Gombrich, and Goodman21¶ — have tended to categorize maps as a type of

congruent diagram — as analogs, models, or 'equivalents' creating a similitude of reality — and, in

essence, different from art or painting. A 'scientific' cartography (so it was believed) would be

untainted by social factors. Even today many cartographers are puzzled by the suggestion that

political and sociological theory could throw light on their practices. They will probably shudder at the

mention of deconstruction.

The acceptance of the map as 'a mirror of nature' (to employ Richard Rorty's phrase22) also results in a

number of other characteristics of cartographic discourse even where these are not made explicit.

Most striking is the belief in progress: that, by the application of science ever more precise

representations of reality can be produced. The methods of cartography have delivered a "true,

probable, progressive, or highly confirmed knowledge."23¶ This mimetic bondage has led to a tendency

not only to look down on the maps of the past (with a dismissive scientific chauvinism) but also to

regard the maps of other non-Western or early cultures (where the rules of mapmaking were

different) as inferior to European maps.24¶ Similarly, the primary effect of the scientific rules was to

create a 'standard' — a successful version of 'normal science'25¶ — that enabled cartographers to build

a wall around their citadel of the 'true' map. Its central bastions were measurement and

standardization and beyond there was a 'not cartography' land where lurked an army of inaccurate,

heretical, subjective, valuative, and ideologically distorted images. Cartographers developed a 'sense of

the other' in relation to nonconforming maps. Even maps such as those produced by journalists, where

different rules and modes of expressiveness might be appropriate, are evaluated by many

cartographers according to standards of 'objectivity,' 'accuracy,' and 'truthfulness.' In this respect, the

underlying attitude of many cartographers is revealed in a recent book of essays on Cartographie dans

les médias.26 One of its reviewers has noted how many authors attempt to exorcise from the realm of

cartography any graphic representation that is not a simple planimetric image, and to then classify all

other maps as 'decorative graphics masquerading as maps' where the 'bending of cartographic rules' has

taken place ... most journalistic maps are flawed because they are inaccurate, misleading or biased.27 Or

in Britain, we are told, there was set up a 'Media Map Watch' in 1984. "Several hundred interested

members [of cartographic and geographic societies] submitted several thousand maps and diagrams for

analysis that revealed [according to the rules] numerous common deficiencies, errors, and inaccuracies

along with misleading standards."28¶ In this example of cartographic vigilantism the 'ethic of accuracy' is

being defended with some ideological fervor. The language of exclusion is that of a string of 'natural'

opposites: 'true and false'; 'objective and subjective'; 'literal and symbolic' and so on. The best maps

are those with an "authoritative image of self-evident factuality."29

AT: heidegger

Crampton, Department of Anthropology and Geography Georgia State University, 2

*Jeremy W, Winter 2002, “Thinking Philosophically in Cartography: Toward A Critical Politics of

Mapping”, Cartographic Perspectives, Number 41, page 7-8, PAC]

For example the question “how old is the Vinland map” is an ontical question, whereas “what is the

mode of being of maps” is an ontological question. The first question may be addressed and resolved

by science, but not the second (Polk, 1999, 34). Elden adds that “Heidegger’s own exercise of

fundamental ontology deals with the conditions of possibility not just of the ontic sciences, but also of

the ontologies that precede and found them. This is the question of being” (Elden, 2001, 9).

Heidegger’s distinction suggests that ontical enquiry often characterizes disciplinary work because it

can be addressed scientifically. In the discipline of cartography for example, we enquire how to

satisfactorily generalize and symbolize landscape features, or which projection best reduces

distortion. But this ontic language of science and objectivity itself takes place within a conceptual

framework (ontologically). We can call this the fisherman’s problem, using an insightful metaphor from

Gunnar Olsson: “The fisherman’s catch furnishes more information about the meshes of his net than

about the swarming reality that dwells beneath the surface” (Olsson, 2002, 255). The fisherman

certainly catches real fish that were in the ocean (that is, ontical enquiry certainly can say truthful

things about the real world). But if he tried to say something about the reality of the denizens of the

ocean, his explanation would be related to the size of his fishing net. He wouldn’t have much to say

about whales or sharks, nor about sea anemones. The net therefore plays a double function of both

revealing things about the sea and hiding or concealing them. For Heidegger this double function of

unconcealing–concealing is an abiding aspect of our understanding of being. If Heidegger is right then

studying maps and mapping would seem to include as much about what maps can’t or don’t do as

what they can do. This is why Harley spoke of the silences of the map (Harley, 1988b).

If we now go back to the difference between Robinson and Harley we can see that where the former

described the fish in the net, the philosophies of Foucault and Heidegger are concerned with the net

itself. Harley also asked about the net. What does the net catch? Do we like what it catches? Have

other places or times had other kinds of nets which caught different things? What do we suspect the

net to be unable to catch? How can we change the net to catch other things? According to Heidegger

our present “ontological net” is critically flawed because it sets up being in a very scientific way. We

like to measure things and treat them as objective presences on the landscape that can be re–

presented. Again, this critique of science should remind us more of Harley than Robinson. The ontic–

ontological distinction is a familiar one in the history of philosophy, dating back to Descartes and Kant.

When Heidegger took it up, he distinguished between living life as such (making choices against a

background of possibilities) for which he coins the term “existential” understanding, and the questioning

of what constitutes existence and the structure of these possibilities, which he calls the “existential”

understanding (Heidegger, 1962, §3–4). This existential understanding is one directed toward the

meaning of being. Heidegger begins his book by stating that we are very far from answering the

question of what an existential understanding might be; so far, in fact, that the very question itself is

forgotten (Heidegger, 1962, §1).

These bewildering terms might make us wonder why it’s worth worrying about the “being of maps.”

Why not study concrete maps that actually exist? Heidegger’s response is essentially to refer us once

again to the fisherman’s problem. Sure, we could study the contents of the net. This is what we do

when we study maps and mapping, especially from a scientific viewpoint. It is ontical enquiry about

things. But the only way to know anything meaningful about the nature of the ocean is to understand

our conceptual framework from within which we understand that ocean––to look at the net itself.

This ontological looking means thinking about being as such, including the being of maps. The fact

that it sounds strange to say this (“the being of maps”) is just one indication that we hardly ever think

this way, that is, philosophically. Perhaps if we do so, we can open up a new and productive dialog

about mapping

AT: Env K – Scapegoating/Personal Responsibility

Refusing to question the subjectivity of maps and other ‘truths’ cedes our power to

hegemonic authorities

Wood, Cartographer and Fels North Carolina State University GIS Program Graduate 8

*Denis; John; “The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World,” Cartographica

Volume 43, Issue 3, page 191-192, accessed via ebscohost, PAC]

The continual assent given to the propositions made by maps endows them with the authority that is

uniquely that of reference objects. These include catalogues,¶ calendars, concordances,

encyclopaedias, directories,¶ phone books, dictionaries (Merriam-Webster’s, the OED [look it up!]),

thesauruses (Roget’s!), glossaries (at the end¶ of every textbook), textbooks (Organic Chemistry – no¶

subtitle), the National Geographic, the Times (New York,¶ London, Los Angeles), TV Guide, style guides

(The Chicago¶ Manual of Style [fifteenth edition!], Turabian, Strunk and¶ White), cookbooks, field guides,

travel books (‘‘What¶ does the Mobil Guide say?’’), footnotes, citations, legal citations, priests, eye

witnesses, constitutions, parliamentary procedures. All of these constitute objectifying resources that

permit a claimant to insist that, ‘‘It is not I, not I who says this, but –’’ before dropping, like a tombstone,

the name of some revered reference object (Langenscheidt’s, Grove’s, the Britannica, Larousse, Merck).¶

Maps too are objectifying resources: the maps of¶ Hammond, Bartholomew, Rand-McNally, Esselte,

the¶ National Geographic Society, AAA, Mobil, Michelin, the¶ United States Geological Survey, other

national mapping¶ services, state highway maps, the Thomas Guides, Falk’s,¶ bus maps, maps of metro

lines. Maps objectify by winnowing out our personal agency, replacing it with that of a reference

object so constructed by so many people over so long a time that it might as well have been

constructed by no one at all (‘‘It is not I who says this,¶ but...the entire human race’’). Citation enhances

a source’s authority but also the authority of the one who cites it. The reflected light is blinding.

Opposition is extinguished.¶ ‘‘You don’t believe the map? Check it out!’’¶ This authority, apparently

descriptive, is inherently prescriptive. The phone book is not a guide to numbers¶ from which one may

feel free to pick and choose (though¶ plenty evidently do): it tells you what to dial, it prescribes the

number. A street directory gives you the address.¶ There is no ‘‘Hmmm’’ here as there is over the

choices a¶ thesaurus offers or among the shades of meaning¶ provided by decent dictionaries, where

even so there is¶ little hemming or hawing over spelling. The dictionary is¶ absolutely prescriptive about

spelling, a social fact we¶ acknowledge – that we dramatize – in the annual rite of¶ the National Spelling

Bee. Among the mutual validations¶ – spellers validating the authority of the dictionary,¶ dictionary

validating the speller’s spelling – the prescriptive, the authoritative, is hard to miss.

AT: Environmental Securitization

Our current representation of the ocean is manifested in modern security logic

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2001

[Philip E., The Social Construction of the Ocean, page 11-12, Google books, PAC]

Much like the "transport-surface" construction of ocean-space, the construction of the ocean as a

"force-field” is dependent upon an idealization of the sea as an unmanaged and unmanageable

surface, an idealization that resonates with the spatial assumptions that permeate realist theories of

international politics. According to realists, individual societies, as embodied by spatially defined

nation-states, are the repositories of order, while international relations are characterized by anarchic

competition (Grieco l990;Morgenth.1u and Thompson 1985). As unclaimed and unclaimable

"international" space, the world-ocean lends itself to being constructed as the space of anarchic

competition par excellence, when: ontologically pre-existent and essentially equivalent nation-states do

battle in unbridled competition for global spoils. In realist geopolitics (a subset of realist international

relations theory), control of specific locations on the earth's surface is considered crucial in the

competition for global power (Cohen 1973; Mackinder 1904; Parker 1985). Within this group of

geopolitical realists, certain theorists have put a premium on control of portions or the entirety of the

world-ocean (Mahan 1890; Raleigh 1829; Spykman 1944).

Leaving aside for the moment any further critique of the realist conception of either the state or

international relations (both of which are taken up again later in this chapter), it is argued here that the

military history perspective is deficient for much the same reason as the commercial history

perspective: Both perspectives are premised upon a denial of the ocean's long history as a space that

continuously has been regulated and managed. Even those who study the history of sea power from

an explicitly social angle-such as Modelski and Thompson (1988), who trace the rise and fall of maritime

powers as indicators of world-systemic long cycles and the shifting fortunes of individual countries -

fail to investigate the ocean itself as a space within which the social contest is played out. Rather than

being a neutral surface across and within which states have vied for power and moved troops, the

sea, like the nation-states themselves, has been socially constructed throughout history. Although in

the modem era the sea has been constructed outside the territory of individual states, it has been

constructed as a space amenable to a degree of governance within the state system. Indeed, as

Thomson (1994) has shown, this construction of the sea has played an important role in the

construction of modem norms of international relations. As was the case with Harlow's definition of

the sea as unregulatable transport space, the very act of defining the sea as a space of anarchic military

competition both reflects and creates specific social constructions of both ocean-space and land-space.

The mapping of oceans has historically portrayed them only as sites for geopolitical

conflict. We must realize that the ocean is not only a space where politics is enacted,

but also one where politics is constructed

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 2009

*Philip E., “Oceans,” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography,

http://philsteinberg.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/iehg.pdf, accessed 6/27/14 JO]

Historically, when human geographers have studied the ocean, they most often have looked to the

sea as a space of politics and, in particular, as an arena for geopolitical conflict. The ocean has been

viewed as a space in which the forces of land-based states meet as each attempts to control crucial

areas of the sea (e.g., choke points on shipping lanes or particularly productive fishing grounds) or to

use the ocean as a platform from which power can he projected onto land. Increasingly, however,

political geographers (especially those who associate themselves with the critical geopolitics

movement) are criticizing this model of the world as one in which states with unambiguously bounded

insides interact with each other on a preexisting (and presocial) spatial platform. Instead, the discursive

bounding of states and the construction of the world as a universe of mutually exclusive territorial

states is seen as an act of politics that itself is worthy of study. It follows from this critique that there is

no a priori distinction between a state's 'inside' (its territory) and its 'outside' (space that is outside

state territory). Thus, the ocean, historically viewed by political geographers as a space wherein

political actors battle each other, is now recognized as a space in which politics (and political

territories) are created.

AT: Object Oriented Ontology - Perm

The perm solves—The plan recognizes the way that objects such as maps are able to

influence and shape human societies

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2012

*Levi, September, “The Gravity of Things: An Introduction To Onto-Cartography,”

http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bryantontocartographies.pdf, accessed: 7/1/14, JO]

While the term “onto-cartography” is perhaps new, bits and pieces of onto-cartographical theory and

investigation have been around for quite some time. When Latour writes “Where are the Missing

Masses” and argues that we must refer to nonhumans such as hinges on doors and speed bumps to

account for many of the regularities we find in society, he is proposing what we would call an onto-

cartographical analysis of the world.5 There Latour shows us how the nonhumans of the world in the

form of various technologies encourage us to behave in certain ways or follow certain paths that we

would not ordinarily follow in their absence. He shows, in short, how these nonhumans exercise a

certain gravity over us, leading us to follow certain paths of movement and becoming.

The perm is best—Onto-Cartography is meant to be used in conjunction with other

critical studies

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2014

[Levi, “Onto-cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media”, page 8, JO]

While the aims of onto-cartography are political and ethical in nature, I do not advocate for any

particular ethical or political paradigm in what follows. In other words, the work that follows can be

described as a work of meta-politics and meta-ethics. It does not stipulate what political issues we

should be concerned with, what we ought to do, or what ethics we ought to advocate, but rather

attempts to outline the ontological framework within which political and ethical questions should be

thought. Recently Adam Miller has proposed the concept of "porting" to describe this sort of

theorizing (Miller 2013: 4-5). In computer programming, porting consists in reworking a program so it is

able to function in a foreign software environment. It is my hope that a variety of political

preoccupations - Marxist critiques of capitalism, anarchist critiques of authority and power, feminist

critiques of patriarchy, deconstructive critiques of essences, critiques of ideology, queer theory

critiques of heteronormativity, ecological critiques of environmental practices, post-humanist critiques

of human exceptionalism, post-colonial critiques of racism, and so on, can be fruitfully ported into the

framework of onto-cartography, assisting in the development of new avenues of inquiry and political

practice, revealing blind-spots in other theoretical frameworks, and helping to render certain concepts

and claims more precise and rigorous. The aim of onto-cartography is not to close of styles of inquiry,

but to expand our possibilities for intervening in the world to produce change so as to better

understand how power functions and devise strategies so as to overcome various forms of

oppression.

AT: Object Oriented Ontology – No Link

No link—Our way of rethinking cartography recognizes social relations as embedded

in a particular space

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2014

[Levi, “Onto-cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media”, page 7, JO]

While onto-cartography overlaps with many issues and themes dealt with in geographical

cartography, it differs from the latter in that geography, in one of its branches, maps geographical

space, whereas onto-cartography maps relations or interactions between machines or entities and

how they structure the movements and becomings of one another. With that said, onto-cartography

does contend that geography is the queen of the social sciences as it is that branch of social theory

that least dematerializes the world and social relations, avoiding the transformation of social ecologies

into discursivity. If this is so, then it is because geography recognizes the manner in which social

relations are always embedded in a particular space or place, that communication takes time to travel

through space and requires media to travel, and that geographical features of the material world play

an important role in the form that social relations take. Social and political philosophy needs to

become more geographical.

AT: Cap K – Perm

Capitalist regimes have tried to identify the difference, but in their attempt have

ignored difference—the only way to solve is the aff where we have a space to actually

think from

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff University, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Jon & Kimberly, Water Worlds Human Geographies of the Ocean, p. 9-10, J.J.]

For the past two decades, critical theorists (including myself) have been problematizing the changing

substance of that ontological unity, locating its shifting significations, uses, and regulatory regimes in

the dialectics of capitalism, the interstices of political thought, or the specificity of cultural norms, and

tracing its dynamism across time and space. But even as we have pursued this agenda, we have

persisted in conceiving of the ocean as an object, a substance, a surface of difference, the other 70%.

To borrow terms from Derrida (1982), in our efforts to identify difference, the system by which

meanings are defined, we have ignore difference, the system by which meanings are deferred.

The alternative, if one is to write about the ocean as a non- objectified arena, is to approach it as a

space that is not so much known as experienced; less a space that we live on (or, more often, gaze at)

than one that we live in; less a two-dimensional surface than a four-dimensional sphere; a space that

we think from (Anderson 2012).

AT: Cap K

Turn - The counter mapping of the 1AC inserts new ideas into the system that disrupts the capitalist

flow of traditional cartography

St. Martin, Rutgers Geography Professor, 2009

*Kevin, 2009, “Toward a Cartography of the Commons: Constituting the Political and Economic

Possibilities of Place,” Professional Geographer, 61, (4): pg. 1-4, Accessed: 6-30-14,

http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Kevin-St-

Martin/Cartography_of_Commons.pdf, KMM]

Place-based politics and struggles around resources that counter neoliberal dispossessions of what had

been common require an ontological ground upon which such politics and struggles might be enacted. A

host of contemporary movements, from indigenous rights to resources to anti-enclosure movements,

rely upon a vision of community territory or local commons through which alternative forms of

environmental knowledge, productive utilization of resources, and local identities can be imagined (e.g.

Escobar 2001; Mackenzie 2006; Sletto 2002). These spaces of difference counter hegemonic

understandings of nature as an inventory of discrete resources open to individual appropriation, and

they are increasingly represented using mapping and related technologies that fall under the rubric of

“counter-mapping” (Peluso 1995).

Counter-maps work against the displacement, valuation, abstraction, individuation, privatization, and

alienability of resources that are foundational to a capitalist appropriation and exploitation of nature

(Castree 2003), and, insofar as they recast space as the domain of resource dependent communities,

they work against the representation of resource users as competing individuals bent on utility

maximization. Counter-mapping, then, is not only an effective method for reclaiming material

resources for those who have been dispossessed but it works to counter particular forms of economic

subjectivity and space (St. Martin 2005a); it inserts a non-capitalist presence into locations where only

a capitalist potential had been identified via scientific and institutionalized mappings of nature and

resources (cf. Law 2004).

In this sense, counter-maps represent a parallel and spatial analogue to the alternative language of

economy developed by Gibson-Graham and others (Gibson-Graham 1996). Where counter-maps

suggest the possibility of non-capitalist spaces, openings in the economic landscape, Gibson-Graham

posits a “diverse economy” where non-capitalist class processes, alternative economic subjectivities,

and “community economies” might be identified and/or enacted (Gibson-Graham 1996, 2006). Both are

counter-discourses that create openings for non-capitalism, one utilizes a spatial imaginary and one is

focused more on economic subjectivity. Furthermore, insofar as capitalism is associated with a globally

expansive and totalizing system, both locate difference from capitalism in ways that are constitutive of

community economies and their respective commons (see also Gudeman and Rivera 2002) and

contribute to an “ethics of the local” (Gibson-Graham 2003; see also Mackenzie 2006).

This paper seeks to build upon the possibility of counter-mapping initiatives to act not only as a

reclaiming of resources and identities by local, primarily indigenous, peoples but also as constitutive of

an imaginary of place and identity released from capitalist subjection and productive of a

community/commons becoming. While mapping and the quantitative assessment of resources have

long been associated with the rise of capitalism, here such methods are rethought and redeployed as a

means to counter capitalism by remapping space/resources as common(s). Competing with the

cartography of capitalism, undermining its power to fix resources as open to capitalist appropriation and

space as enclosed, will require a cartography of the commons that can effectively recast space as a site

of multiple economic possibilities and resources as the basis of community livelihoods.

This broadening of counter-mapping to be a method for “imagining and enacting non-capitalism”

(Community Economies Collective 2001) is, however, hampered by its alignment with essential

communities located on the periphery of capitalism. Reliant upon ethnographic approaches, sketch

mapping, map biographies, and village-level meetings, counter-mapping initiatives reinforce

representations of resource dependent communities as traditional, local, discrete, and often

homogenous entities (Hodgson and Schroeder 2002); they cast community-based claims to resources in

chiefly historic terms (Chapin 2005); and they suggest an applicability in sites that are somehow either

beyond or before capitalism (St. Martin 2005a). Such methods make the generalization of difference

from capitalism to other scales or locations (particularly those represented as capitalist by dominant

discourses of economy) difficult at best. In this sense, counter-mapping is limited: it does not so much

disrupt the cartographic discourse of capitalism as it maps islands of difference to be defended from a

powerful, coherent, and, ultimately, global capitalism.

The second task of this paper, then, is to explore the use of counter-mapping as a means to counter

capitalism not just on its frontier but at its center, to re-present and re-map the economic landscape of

even, and especially, the global North as diverse and open to alternative economic futures. While this

might be achieved in a variety of ways (c.f. Cameron and Gibson 2005a), this paper illustrates how we

can not only reclaim space and resources for communities (and community economies; see Graham et

al. 2002) but how we can reclaim the very tools and methods of hegemonic institutions that have

traditionally mapped space as a template for capitalism and resources as available for

individual/corporate appropriation. For example, state sponsored databases and inventories of

resources that fix space and resources as elements of a capitalist economy might be reworked using

critical quantitative and GIS methodologies to reveal non-capitalist potentials across sites and scales

(e.g. Arvidson 1995). Such methods will allow a cartography of the commons to not only map spaces as

non-capitalist but to do so beyond the village or the historic commons. In general, a cartography of the

commons, applicable in the first world and disruptive of capitalism, will require a shift in strategy from

explicating and defending existing commons to mapping a space into which a commons future might be

projected.

The process of art mapping is able to challenge the authority of the capitalist structure

Wood, North Carolina State Former Design Professor, and Krygier, Ohio Wesleyan

University Geography Professor, 2009

*Denis and John, Elsevier Ltd., “Critical Cartography,”

http://www.mixedrealitycity.org/readings/critical_cartography.pdf, accessed 6/30/14, JO]

Ethnocartography, eco-mapping, PPGIS, anticipatory rural appraisal, green mapping, Parish mapping, all

these and others have fed the stream of maps, growing in volume ever since the late 1950s, that have

been made by artists. From the hands of surrealists, situations, pop artists, conceptual artists, Earth

artists, eco-artists, installation artists, and others have come a flood of maps challenging not simply

Western capitalist society, but the authority of Western capitalist cartography to map the world. Art

maps contest not only the authority of professional mapmaking institutions — government, business,

and science — to reliably map the world, but they also reject the world such institutions bring into

being. Art maps are always pointing toward worlds other than those mapped by professional

mapmakers. In doing so, art maps draw attention to the world-making power of professional

mapmaking. What is at stake, art maps insist, is the nature of the world we want to live in. In pointing

toward the existence of other worlds, real or imagined, map artists are claiming the power of the map

to achieve ends other than the social reproduction of the status quo. Map artists do not reject maps.

They reject the authority claimed by professional cartography uniquely to portray reality as it is. In

place of such professional values as accuracy and precision, art maps assert values of imagination,

social justice, dreams, and myths; and in the maps they make hurl these values as critiques of the

maps made by professionals and the world professional maps have brought into being. Artists insist

that their maps chart social and cultural worlds every bit as 'real' as those mapped by professional

cartographers. Some, Guy Debord among them, have explicitly called for a 'renovated cartography' as a

form of" intervention. The project of art mapping is nothing less than the remaking of the world.

Race Critiques

The aff helps us understand the idea of “race” and the particular way that maps

engage in this discussion

Winlow, Cultural and Historical Geographer at Bath Spa University, 2006

*Heather, March 1, 2006, “Mapping Moral Geographies: W. Z. Ripley’s Races of Europe and the

United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, EBSCOhost Academic

Search Complete, accessed 6-25-14, J.J.]

Critical geographers, among others, have in recent years come to understand the idea of ‘‘race’’ as

socially constituted over time. Kobayashi (2003) has traced the historical links between racialization

and spatialization with particular focus on key developments in geography as a discipline. She argues

that the idea of race as we now understand it can be traced to developments in scientific thinking during

the Enlightenment. In particular she notes that Immanuel Kant’s stress on the links between skin color

and distance from the equator fed into new ways of thinking about race. His assumption of links

between darker skin color and inferior intellectual qualities reflected a moral hierarchy of both

peoples and places and played into the interests of colonialism. As a respected academic and holder of

a Chair in Geography in Europe, Kant’s lectures on geography strongly influenced the next generation of

researchers (Livingstone 1992a; Kobayashi 2003). Other elements of Enlightenment thought also

stressed the links between environment and human development. For example, Montesquieu’s The

Spirit of the Laws (1748) emphasizes that ‘‘the cultural characteristics that shape and condition

humanity were molded by environmental factors, like climate and soil’’ (see Livingstone 1992a, 122).

Travelogues of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also incorporated ‘‘the conventional judgment .

. . that warmer climates encouraged moral sloth, while colder ones stimulated intellectual vigor’’ (Driver

1988, 278). It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that the idea of discrete race types,

linked to geographical region, became more strictly delineated. Biddis (1979) has noted that before

1800 the term race had been used as a rough expression to convey ethnic lineage, but that over the first

half of the nineteenth century the word assumed an additional sense that initially appeared more

scientific. During the early part of the twentieth century geographers continued to be informed by the

scientific racism of the late nineteenth century, but issues surrounding race were largely ignored

following World War II. Kobayashi (2003) has noted that despite the defeat of Nazism and the rejection

of racism following the war, there was a systematic ‘‘denial’’ of the issues of race within geographical

circles, with dehumanized spatial science playing the dominant role in human geography. In the 1960s

and 1970s, there was some focus on race and space, with race issues largely viewed in terms of spatial

inequalities. Following the critical turn in the discipline in the 1980s and early 1990s, which involved

deliberate attempts to integrate both Marxist and humanistic geographies (Kobayashi 2003), there has

been widespread recognition of race as a ‘‘social construct’’ (Jackson 1987, 1989, 1994, 1998).

Acceptance of this theory has resulted in a diverse range of studies on race and space, including a focus

on whiteness (Bonnett 1993, 1996a, 1996b), on the creation of hegemonic landscapes (Anderson 1987,

1988, 1991), and on various forms of historical racial representation.

CounterPlans

AT: PIC State/Usfg

Only including state action allows us to challenge the neutrality of SQ maps

McTavish, San Francisco State University Geography Master of Arts, 2010

*Anne Kathryn, January, San Francisco State University, “The Role of Critical Cartography in

Environmental Justice: Land-Use Conflict at Shasta Dam, California”,

http://geog.sfsu.edu/geog/sites/sites7.sfsu.edu.geog/files/thesis/McTavishThesis.pdf, accessed 6-29-14,

JO]

Critical Cartography provides a framework through which the scientific neutrality of maps may be

examined. The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) detailed the measurement methods to be followed by

surveyors and the processes to be followed in disposing of land from the public domain. However, John

Short, in Representing the Republic: Mapping the United States, 1600-1900, documented the political

power of these maps. He described various ways the changing technology and industry of geographic

representation played an important role in the development of a national identity for the American

Republic. Throughout the book Short continually turned to the New York state area to examine the

impact of national changes on local areas. In one example he described the impact of the PLSS on the

Oneida Tribe. They were reduced from “owning” six million acres in central New York in 1784 to

controlling thirty-two acres in 1990 (Short 2001: p. 77). Another example of the political power of

maps is provided by Malcolm Lewis, in Cartographic Encounters. In a case study of the upper Great

Lakes region, Lewis demonstrated how Indian maps, once considered spatially naive, were essential

inputs to Euro-American maps (Lewis 1998).

Critical Cartography promotes cartographic integrity and responsibility, and advocates social change.

In the article, “Beyond the ‘Binaries’: A Methodological Intervention for Interrogating Maps as

Representational Practices,” authors Vincent Del Casino and Stephen Hanna argued that the researcher

must strive to examine the many historical and spatial references that are part and parcel of any map

(Del Casino et al. 2006: p. 37). The classic study that showed how geographical analysis can empower

social movements was Toxic Wastes and Race, published in 1987 (Crampton et al. 2005: p. 15; United

Church of Christ 1987). This study changed focus from examining the details of local hazardous waste

sitings to examining patterns of sitings. At the national level it became evident that a disproportionate

number of the hazardous waste sites were located in minority neighborhoods. By changing scale from

local to national, and examining the relationship of ‘‘toxic release inventory’’ sitings to race, the study

show that race, not poverty, was the correlating factor, and thereby catalyzed the environmental

justice movement ((Bullard 2001: p. 151; Cole et al. 2001: p. 20). However, the connection between

race and space is often hard to see, especially if space is thought of as empty and racially neutral (Pulido

2000: p. 13; Sullivan 2006: p. 1). The geography of environmental racism may be exposed by adding the

element (scale) of time, which makes it possible to see that contemporary conditions, that were created

historically, are now preserved institutionally (Almaguer 1994: p. 14; Pulido 2000: p. 15).

Even Google maps carries with it subliminal values and social relations

Ström, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Global Studies Ph.D student, 2013

*Timothy Eric, November, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, “The Culturalization of Nature and the

Naturalization of Culture in Google Maps,” http://global-cities.info/wp-

content/uploads/2013/11/Culturalisation-of-Nature.pdf, Accessed: 6/30/14, JO]

The still frame depicted in Figure 1 was captured from Google Maps ‘satellite mode’ at the outmost

level of zoom. As a world map, this image is not unique, being similar to many other established,

influential world maps, and, at the global level, many of Google’s innovations do not come into play.

What’s more, this image is taken from a desktop computer interfacing with Google Maps, which may be

seen as ‘old fashioned’ now that the internet is increasingly ‘going mobile’. What is unique about this

world map is its’ audience of one billion. This sheer power of their market penetration, to use this

phallic expression, means that how Google Maps represents the Earth, how they ‘culturalize nature’, is

highly significant because this shapes the image of the world that is presented to an unprecedented

number of people.

At first glance, the highly abstracted shapes of the continents are instantly recognizable to anyone

enculturated in the global age. In his influential book Imagined Communities (1983), Benedict Anderson

noted that national maps played a significant role in shaping peoples’ ability to imagine nation-states

and thus their identity within this framework (2006, pp. 170– 8). Building on this, I suggest that world

maps have become icons of globalization and that they now play a significant role in shaping peoples’

imaginations of the world as a single place and thus their identity in this global frame (Steger 2008).

The continents depicted by Google Maps are fractured by borders which represent a political

geometry of history, empire, states, conquest and power. These neat, self-contained nation-states are

the building blocks of this world, which can be read as embodying a tension between the global and the

national. One thing immediately jumps out from this image: north is up. This may sound trivial, yet

there is nothing ‘natural’ about it. This is a value judgement thrust upon the spherical Earth. Before

the advent of modern mapping, European maps were often oriented with East as up, as the famous

13th century Hereford Mappa Mundi testifies (Hereford Mappa Mundi). Jerusalem is in the centre of

this map, with the archipelago we now call the British Isles being situated in the bottom left corner, and

the island now known as Sri Lanka is in the top right corner. The logic behind this orientation was that

Jerusalem is to the east, the Garden of Eden is in the east, the sun rises in the east and thus Heaven

must be that direction too. Thus, the male figure of God is depicted as sitting on the top of the world,

so this map captures how the entire medieval Christian world order was organized around, and under,

this divine orientation.

Later, with the Enlightenment, empiricism and empire, the orientation of European maps changed

and—in a move of sublime humility—they put themselves in the top and in the centre of the world. The

emblazoned 1886 map of the British Empire as drawn by English artist Walter Crane is an emblematic

example of this. In this map, the goddess Britannia literally sits atop the world while being lavishly

fanned by her oriental imperial subjects. The map is embellished with the spoils of empire, including a

half-naked aboriginal woman waving a boomerang in one hand and patting a kangaroo with the other.

Times change, now Google Maps defaults to a new ‘centre of the world’; the United States of America

(Ström 2011).

It is worth contrasting the Google Maps image with the famous Blue Marble photograph, taken from

the window of Apollo 17 in 1972 about 45,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface (Apollo 17). This

image of the world looks vividly different from how our planet is presented in most maps, particularly

when seen in its original south-as-up orientation. One reason for this can be summed up in a word:

clouds. In Google’s world, there are no clouds, rather the entire atmosphere has been purged. In noting

this silence, I draw attention to Google’s choice not to represent the atmosphere in favour of, say

nation-state boundaries, for this belies the corporation’s intentions and values, as well as locating it

within a broader cartographic tradition. In the same move, as Google removes the atmosphere, it also

removes the entire hydrosphere. In place of the oceans, the sea floor is represented with ridges and

trenches all coloured blue. And yet, the ocean is blue because it reflects the sky, but in Google’s world it

purges the sky, purges the ocean, and then paints the seafloor. The reasons for these choices relate to a

visual aesthetics of meaning-making, and thus they are profoundly imagined and cultural.

In making the above point I am not imploring Google to attempt to map the unmappable, or even to

encourage the corporation in their architectonic mission ‘to organize the world’s information.’ By noting

the exclusion of clouds from Google Maps, I am not suggesting that this is a gross oversight, or that

the map even should include the atmosphere. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to imagine an

uncomfortably close future where in which Google has fleets of surveillance drones hovering above

cities allowing real time information, meteorological and otherwise, to be streamed onto their map.

Scenarios such as this will become increasingly possible as Google furthers its their embrace of the

expanding surveillance-intelligence- robotics-military complex (Bauman and Lyon 2013). My point is

rather to stress the inescapable subjectivity of maps and to tease out the values and social relations

that underpin these representations.

Returning to the hydrosphere, it is significant to note that while the Pacific Ocean is larger than all of

Earth's land areas combined; yet in Google Maps the world-ocean is reduced to a mere 8 per cent of

the total surface due to its use of the Mercator projection, invented in 1569 (Strom 2011). This

colonial projection also dramatically reduces the relative size of the equatorial countries of the Global

South. Other examples of choices Google has made regarding the visual aesthetics of their map are

evident in the removal of the Earth's great cycles. The planet is represented as being illuminated by

perpetual summer; there are no seasonal variations in this evergreen world. And, finally, there is no

night: the sun never sets on Google's empire.

AT: Indigenous PIC - Perm

Perm do both

Pearce Geography Professor at the University of Kansas and Louis Affiliate Researcher

Institute of Policy and Social Research University of Kansas, ‘08

(Margret Wickens and Renee Pualani, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 32:3 “Mapping

Indigenous Depth of Place” P. 109, Accessed 7/2/2014, ESB)

These projects overwhelmingly apply Western cartographic language by using GT to represent

Indigenous cultural knowledge. Methodological approaches to Indigenous mapping have varied

depending on the particular political and cultural context in which they arise, from the traditional land-

use studies of Canada and Alaska to the participatory mapping programs of

Asia and Africa and the implementation of large-scale tribal GIS programs in the United States. 5 Issues

of ontological and epistemological differences in cartography and map symbolization between

Indigenous communities and those who design, market, and provide instruction in GT (including GIS

software) generally have not been addressed. As a result, Indigenous cultural knowledge is often

distorted, suppressed, and assimilated into the conven-tional Western map. This practice of locating

cultural knowledge without expressing the spatial meanings and interrelationships of that knowledge

preserves “only a superficial cultural diversity through its products, ceremo-nies, and performances

whose meaning will be diluted through secular decontexted performances.” 6 In addition, mapping

Indigenous cultural knowledge in general leaves such knowledge vulnerable. In their 2005 study,

which created an ethno-graphic record of Navajo wayfinding and narratives of place, Kelley and Francis

reflected on this question: “Doesn’t putting this kind of information in the ‘ethnographic record’

endanger the society’s traditions, its very self-perpet-uation? From the maps that American Indians

drew for the earliest European colonizers to today’s Geographic Information System maps of current

indig-enous hunting-gathering areas, the ‘putting on the record’ always seems to accompany

indigenous loss of resources and the oral tradition itself.” 7 Despite substantial literature that

expresses concern about such distor-tions and dilutions, little has been offered in the way of solutions.

The presentation of cultural knowledge through traditional Indigenous cartogra-phies as a means of

communication to non-Indigenous communities is not an option. When Indigenous cartographies are

removed from the context of their knowledge space and placed in colonial conditions, Indigenous

maps do not convey the same level of power and authority naturally conveyed by the Western maps.

The need for Indigenous communities to adapt Western mapping techniques for the representation of

local knowledge remains essential to both the preservation of Indigenous cultural diversity and the

realization of Indigenous self-determination in the face of global change. Given that necessity, what

can be done to improve the uses of cartography in the future?

Perm do Both: “Indigenous mapping” PIC

Johnson Professor of geography at the University of Kansas, Louis affiliate Researcher Institute of

Policy and Social Research University of Kansas and Promanono department of Geography at

University Hawai‘i at Mānoa, ‘6

(Jay, T, Renee Pualani, Albertus Hadi, Facing the Future: Encouraging Critical Cartographic Literacies, In

Indigenous Communities, 2006, P. 85, Accessed 7/1/14, ESB)

Returning to the heading of this section, having described ‘multiple literacies’ now let us turn our

attention to describing what we mean by ‘multiple cartographies’. Just as the recognition of multiple

literacies allows for intrinsic diversity, historic and cultural variability, so the recognition of multiple

cartographies allows for the recognition of diverse forms of spatial representation among various

cultural groups. Harley observes that “recent studies in anthropology, art history, and ethnohistory

identify a corpus of indigenous maps that represent valid ‘alternative’ cartographies, different from

European maps, yet important in the history of spatial representation” (1992b: 522). This

conceptualization of multiple or alternative cartographic traditions has been supported in varying

degrees by the works of other geographers as well (Chapin et al., 2001; Harley and Woodward, 1987;

Lewis, 1998; Louis, 2004; Pearce, 1998;Rundstrom, 1987; Sparke, 1998; Woodward and Lewis, 1998). As

a part of multi-volume History of Cartography project, Woodward and Lewis (1998) even provide a

classification of Indigenous spatial representation. While recognizing Indigenous cartographic

traditions, Turnbull (1998) warns that the use of terms such as ethnocartography and Indigenous

mapping runs the risk of “subsuming all other traditions under Western notions of maps and

cartography (p. 17).” We agree that there is a certain risk involved in using this terminology but

emphasize that using the term ‘cartography’ to describe Indigenous spatiotemporal representations

and performances is fundamental in creating a ‘shared space’ through which different cartographic

traditions can be compared and translated. The creation of a ‘shared space’ through which Indigenous

and Western cartographic traditions can be performed and compared requires as Turnbull has

asserted, the recognition that distinct knowledge systems are locally produced and not ‘universal’, as

Western science has claimed (1997).

AT: Indigenous CP - No Solvency Net Benefit

We need a different Epistemology to approach “indigenous” maps

Pearce Geography Professor at the University of Kansas and Louis Affiliate Researcher

Institute of Policy and Social Research University of Kansas, ‘08

(Margret Wickens and Renee Pualani, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 32:3 “Mapping

Indigenous Depth of Place” P. 113, Accessed 7/2/2014, ESB)

Western knowledge and science shapes the structure of Western cartographic language, from the

smallest part of the symbol to the overall look of the map and the ways in which the map is used.

From the initial categorization of a eographical entity as a point, line, area, or volume, an ontological

structure and epistemological assumption has been established in the map. Graphic variables, the marks

that form the vocabulary of cartographic language, also establish an ontological structure. For example,

for paper maps, these variables are spacing, size, perspective height, orientation, shape, arrangement,

hue, saturation, and value. For animated maps, there are the variables of duration, rate of change,

order, display date, frequency, and synchronization. All these variables encode the level of

measurement at which a geographical phenom-enon has been categorized through their “syntactic

rules.” This language is flexible, and cartographers have reexamined and redesigned the form, range,

and depth of these variables to accommodate technological change and the consideration of other

concepts such as scale and uncertainty. Other elements of cartography such as typography, projection,

perspec - tive, the foundations of information design, and the format of graphic media, all contribute

to the map’s ontological structures. Perspective, for example, refers to the point of view from which a

cartographic scene is portrayed. Typically perspective is interpreted as the map’s spatial point of view,

whether the geography is expressed from a plan, profile, or oblique angle. However, perspective may

also be interpreted as the map’s temporal point of view, whether the geography is expressed in spring,

summer, winter, or fall. Expressing this point of view in the map is one technique for removing the

illusion of a place as both disembodied (orthogonally rectified plan perspec - tive) and seasonless space.

Epistemology and ontology are also manifested in the layout and design and the media and materials of

cartographic language. The use of specific techniques such as figure/ground, micro/macro, and small

multiples all communicate specific ontological structures in the map, as do the limitations or variety of

media and materials incorporated into the map and the mapping process. In sum, cartographic language

is composed of a multitude of ontological assumptions, any of which may be altered in order to express

a geographic concept better. We call for a transformation of cartographic language in all of its

dimensions, from graphic marks to the topologies, interrelationships, media, and distribution of those

marks, in ways that are epistemologically and ontologically meaningful for Indigenous cultural

knowledge. This trans - formation would consist of both the expansion of existing techniques and the

creation of new techniques (for example, new categories of graphic variables) that would better serve

Indigenous communities. In so doing, we would be rethinking cartographic language for

epistemological change as it has been so often rethought for technological change in the past. In the

following section, we explore one example of what that cartographic transformation might look like and

how it would improve on existing Western cartography to convey a sense of traditional resource

management at an Indigenous Hawaiian place.

AT: Indigenous CP - Aff Try/Die

We should still attempt to Counter-Map even if it does not perfectly emulate

Indigenous mapping

Pearce Geography Professor at the University of Kansas and Louis Affiliate Researcher

Institute of Policy and Social Research University of Kansas, ‘08

(Margret Wickens and Renee Pualani, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 32:3 “Mapping

Indigenous Depth of Place” P.123, Accessed 7/2/2014, ESB)

The problem that faces Indigenous peoples worldwide is to find a way to incorporate Western GT and

cartographic multimedia while minimizing the mistranslations, recolonizations, and assimilations of

conventional techno - science. As Stone writes, “Map or be mapped.” 36 We recognize that any re-

representation of Indigenous knowledge by using Western cartographic techniques will entail some

loss of information in translation. 37 But we believe that by making that translation more accurate

through a theoretically informed and innovative application of cartographic language, the combi -

nation of “traditional wisdom” with “modern technical know-how,” we can demonstrate the

effectiveness of GT and multimedia as tools not only for protecting cultural sovereignty but also for

articulating exemplary carto - graphic practices for the shared knowledge space of the transmodern.

38 Through the informed practice of cartographic representation—inno - vation rooted in tradition—we

envision a future in which Indigenous communities formulate their cultural mapping programs in a

way that protects and fosters cultural sovereignty, maps the Indigenous without leaving the

Indigenous behind, and simultaneously transforms the way non-Indige - nous people read, interpret,

and make use of maps of Indigenous cultural knowledge. In so doing, we hope to overcome the chasm

of cultural miscom - munication between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds that so often

manifests in loss of territory and cultural rights under colonial conditions.

Disadvantages

AT: Scenario Planning

We need a radical new epistemology to understand the ontology behind mapping of

scenario projections

Kitchen, Geography Professor at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Perkins

Senior Lecturer of Geography at University of Manchester and Dodge Senior Lecturer

of Human Geography at University of Manchester, ‘11

(Rob, Chris and Martin, June 2nd 2001, Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, p. 21-

24, Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Maps do not then emerge in the same way for all individuals. Rather they emerge in contexts and

through a mix of creative, reflexive, playful, tactile and habitual practices; affected by the knowledge,

experience and skill of the individual to perform mappings and apply them in the world. This applies as

much for map making as for map reading. As such, the map does not re- present the world or make the

world, it is a co-constitutive production between inscription, individual and world; a production that is

constantly in motion, always seeking to appear ontologically secure. Conceiving of maps in this way

reveals that they are never fully formed but emerge in process and are mutable (they are re-made as

opposed to mis-made, mis-used or mis-read). In terms of cartographic research, this conceptualization

of maps necessitates an epistemology that concentrates on how maps emerge – how maps are made

through the practices of the cartographer situated within particular contexts and how maps re-make

the world through mutually constitute practices that unite map and space. As Brown and Laurier

(2005: 19, original emphasis) note, this requires a radical shift in approach from

‘ imagined scenarios, controlled experiments or retrospective accounts’ to examine how maps emerge

as solutions to relational problems; to make sense of the unfolding action’ of mapping. Their approach

is the production of detailed ethnographies of how maps become; map making and use is observed

in specific, local contexts to understand the ways in which they are constructed and embedded within

cultures of practices and affect. In their study they examined how maps are used in the context of

navigating while driving between locations through video-based ethnography. Their work

highlighted how a map, journey and social interaction within the car emerged through each other in

contingent and relational ways within the context of the trip.

Aff Pre-Requisite to Solve Ocean Impacts

The sea has an important role and link in everything, the aff is a pre-requisite to

resolve a lot of these major conflicts

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cardiff, UK,

Peters, Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK., 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

This emerging interest in human geographies of the ocean has considered, in manifold ways, the

spatialities bound up in and through water worlds. Studies have developed through a variety of

lenses, including, for example, the networks of flows across ocean spaces, the study of specific

maritime communities (sailors for example), the exploration of maritime places, such as the port, or

the ship and the ways in which some non-modern cultures have the water as central to their world

(see Peters 2010 for a review). Thus, as Lambert et al. identify, in recent years increasing attention has

been paid to ‘epistemological and historiographic perspectives, the imaginative, aesthetic and

sensuous, and material and social geographies’ of the oceans’ (2006: 480). Such a move is justified

when we consider the influence of the sea on our everyday lives. As Lavery tells us, in contemporary

society, approximately ‘95% of trade is still carried by ship’ (2005: 359). Gifts for Western celebrations

arrive freighted by sea from Asia; the global need for oil is serviced by giant tankers exporting

resources from the Middle East to far flung ports; whilst modern day piracy on the high seas raises the

costs of goods and insurance premiums, felt in consumers’ pockets across the globe. Such phenomena

alert us to the mobilities across the water that permeate and infiltrate our daily existence in often

unnoticed, but highly significant ways. No longer then, should we think of water worlds as empty of

activities, mobilities and lifeworlds. The seas are tied up with, and intrinsic to, a host of social,

cultural, economic, political and environmental questions. In this book, our studies launch from the

starting point that seas are significant. In Cooney’s words, we envision a study of the sea that is,

contoured, alive, rich in ecological diversity and in cosmological and religious significance and

ambiguity – [providing] a new perspective on how people actively create their identities, sense of

place and histories. (Cooney 2003: 323) Through each of the chapters that follow, the authors in this

collection assert that we should consider the sea not as a space defined in negative relationality to the

land, but as central to processes of knowledge production, embodied experience and to

understanding the more-than-humanness of our world. Firstly, therefore, this book aims to continue

to establish a human geography of the ocean which takes the water itself, and its central connections

to the land, seriously

AT: Sphere fo Influence DAs

The demarcation of oceans has historically been a method for enabling hegemonic

imperialism. Oceans are rarely distributed in a technical sense, but the underlying

assumptions of mapping carry with them the legitimization of imperial control

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 1999

*Philip E., April, “Lines of Division, Lines of Connection: Stewardship in the World Ocean,” Geographical

Review, Volume: 89, page 254-264, JO]

Turning to the powers granted to each state in ocean space, the bull makes no mention whatsoever of

Spain's authority in the seas within the region in which it has exclusive rights to non-Christian land

space. It does state that any person who is found "to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to

the islands or main lands" without the express permission of the Crown is to suffer excommunication,

but this clause does not necessarily imply any claim to authority, let alone possession, in ocean space; it

merely grants the kind of authority over overseas possessions that a sovereign would claim for the land

of his or her own nation. The treaty goes slightly farther than the bull in granting the two states a

degree of authority in their respective zones of ocean space: It notes that Portugal's ships shall not sail

west of the line unless the ships are engaged in transit to a Portuguese possession, and vice versa, in

which case the ships shall be guaranteed safe passage. This clause appears to grant each state certain

policing functions (for example, Spain has a right to question Portuguese vessels found west of the line

because, as the bull declares, another nation's ship may not go to a Spanish overseas territory without

the express permission of the Spanish Crown), but, again, it does not imply possession of the seas. 2

Rather, the seas are constructed as a legitimate arena for Spain and Portugal to implement the social

power that they are entitled to exercise based on their possession of land space. In contrast, if Spain

and Portugal were granted full possession, as opposed to mere authority, in their sectors, they would

presumably also be free to alienate "their" property or to enact use restrictions beyond those explicitly

permitted in the treaty.

In short, Spain's and Portugal's claims to exclusive rights should not be viewed as claims to possession

of the sea. Rather, the two countries' claims implied that the sea had been divided into "spheres of

influence" in which Spain and Portugal were granted rights of stewardship. Stewardship, though

generally associated with benevolent, or at least utilitarian, aims, embodies an assumption of power.

The stewarding entity is presumed to have a right to exert control both over the resource or space

being stewarded and over others who might wish to use the stewarded resource in a contrary

manner. Indeed, immediately after the treaty was signed, the Spanish and the Portuguese began to

construct the sea as a space supportive of their specific strategies for dominating distant land spaces.

The Spanish were fortunate in that, in most cases, they had little trouble conquering indigenous

cultures, whether by arms or by pathogens, and they soon established a system of mines and, later,

plantations. Following this conquest, Spanish sea power was exercised to restrict trade to certain ports

in Spain as well as in the Americas and to specially organized convoys. In part, this centralized control

was established to protect shipping from pirates, but it also served to prevent the resources of the

Crown's territories from escaping into the hands of other European powers or private Spanish

merchants who might be tempted to outbid the Spanish Crown and negotiate their own deals with

Creole settlers and miners. Thus Spain constructed its marine domain as a special space of commerce

over which the Crown exercised a degree of power and control as a means of projecting its power to

distant lands. As a mercantilist power, Spain used this land and sea power to establish and maintain

exclusive resource-extraction and trade relations, but it did not claim actual possession of ocean

space.

Critical Cartography Neg

Case Debate

Ocean Advantage

Objective Mapping Turn

Our understanding of the ocean and the implications of exploration rely on an

objective, scientific approach that can be universally verified through measurements

and statistics

Davis, research oceanographer for the Physical Oceanography Research Division of the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego 76

Russ E Davis, 1976, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, “Technique for Objective Analysis and Design of

Oceanographic Experiments Applied to Mode-73”

http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/redavis/content/technique-objective-analysis-and-design-

oceanographic-experiments-applied-mode-73 accessed 6/30/14) NM

A technique for the objective analysis of oceanic data has been developed and used on simulated data.

The technique is based on a standard statistical result—the Gauss-Markov Theorem-which gives an

expression for the least square error linear estimate of some physical variable (velocity, stream function,

temperature, etc.) given measurements at a limited number of data points, the statistics of the field

being estimated in the form of space-time spectra, and the measurement errors. An expression for the

r.m.s. error expected in this estimate is also derived and illustrated in the form of ‘error maps’. Efficient

sampling arrays can be designed through trial-and-error adjustment of array configurations until a

suitable balance of mapping coverage and accuracy, as measured by the error maps, is achieved.

Examples of the mapping ability of some simple arrays are given. Using statistics inferred from the

preliminary Mid Ocean Dynamics Experiments various realizations of likely flow fields were simulated.

The 16 element MODE-I array was tested by comparison of the simulated fields and the objective maps

based on inferred ‘measurements’ at the array points. The reliability of statistics inferred from

observations was estimated by comparing correlations derived from limited observations of the

simulated fields with the known statistics. Correlations derived from two realizations differed

significantly but most calculations reproduced the known statistics moderately well. An intercomparison

of Eulerian measurements (current meters) and Lagrangian measurements (neutrally buoyant drifters)

was also carried out using the objective interpolation method.

Science and objectivity are key to a sustainable ocean

Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science President, 1999

*Donald F., 1999, “The role of science in ocean governance,” Ecological Economics, 31: 2, page

190,http://elmu.umm.ac.id/file.php/1/jurnal/E/Ecological%20Economics/Vol31.Issue2.Nov1999/969.pdf

, Accessed 7-1-14, KMM]

In short, there is every reason to expect that at the threshold of the 21st Century our society would have

developed seasoned and effective governance mechanisms for the oceans to husband these shared

resources and the common environment. But this is not the case. Many fish stocks, particularly those

transcending national boundaries or occupying the high seas, have been seriously depleted and are

yet without sound plans for their recovery and sustainable use. Destruction of important coastal

habitats, such as coral reefs and wetlands, continues. Continental water resources are used and

loaded with wastes without understanding, much less considering, the effects on the coastal ocean;

and we continue to fly blindly regarding the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on ocean circulation

and its effect on climate regulation (Broecker, 1997).

For humankind to achieve sustainable governance of the oceans in the 21st Century will require more

effective use of science and involvement of scientists. Not only is it necessary for science to help

unveil the mysteries, complexities, relationships, and consequences of our actions in the natural

world and in human society, but, more than ever, science must meet its potential as a valued and

influential component of modern society. While it may not be as straightforward as ‘speaking truth to

power’, scientific discoveries and syntheses can be extremely catalytic in helping us move from

unsustainable business as usual.

Objective Mapping Extensions

Positivism is essential to an understanding of cartography – everything is objective

and can be verified by science – that’s the most effective approach and anything else

is useless

1AC Author Harley, American Geographical Society, Office of Map History, Director

2002

(JB, 2002, The New Nature Of Maps: Essays In The History Of Cartography, p 5-6, accessed 7/1/14) NM

Before examining Harley's own ideas, we should identify the attitude, described by him as "positivism,"

that he claims to be bringing under critical scrutiny. His opponents are said to maintain that

cartography can be, an usually is, objective, detached, neutral (in all disputes except that between

truth and falsehood), and transparent - four terms which in this context probably mean much the same.

Also, cartography is or can be exact and accurate. It can progress, and often has progressed, towards

greater accuracy. The accuracy of maps consists of mirroring their subject matter. Harley's word,

mirror, presents a difficulty, because it is hard to imagine any so-called positivist using it in this sense:

what might be said is that accuracy depends on the degree of resemblance between two sets of space

relations, one within the map itself and the other on the surface being mapped. Whether the

foregoing characteristics are sufficient to make cartography a "science" is an issue that (despite Harley's

interest in it) may be left to civil servants and educational administrators. Nor will detailed consideration

be given to Harley’s judgments on the moral integrity of the map-making profession. The standpoint

adopted here is that of a map historian interested in philosophical questions, not that of a present-day

cartographer or patron of cartographers. According to Harley, most practicing map makers are

positivists. Some readers may want proof of this. Before about 1930, cartographers made few general

pronouncements of any kind about their subject, and even after that time it is hard to discover the

stridency, hysteria, ideological fervor, and vigilantism that Harley claims to find (though, unusually for

him, without quoting examples) in cartographic discourse. However, positivism in some sense does

seem an appropriate doctrine for practicing cartographers, whatever its limitations on a purely

philosophical plane. Harley does not reject cartographic positivism in its entirety. At one point he

denies that maps themselves can be true or false but immediately adds the proviso "except in the

narrowest Euclidean sense." He expands this phrase by admitting that an accurate road map will help

a traveler reach his destination. This is surely a major concession. Harley does not disagree with what

cartographers say about the part of cartography that interests them. His point is that there are other

aspects of the subject to which these opinions are irrelevant. Cartographers, he seems to think, are less

tolerant in this respect than he is. They not only ignore the nonpositivistic element in their subject but

also refuse to accept its existence. His own belief, in its stronger form, is that "an alternative

epistemology, rooted in social theory rather than in scientific positivism, is more [not equally]

appropriate to the history of cartography is seldom [not not always] what cartographers say it is."

Objective science is the valid epistemology—refusing to reject any other ‘truth’ results

in extinction

Coyne, University of Chicago, Ecology and Evolution, Professor, PhD, 06

[Jerry A. Sep 6 2006, “The Times *UK+ Literary Supplement: A plea for empiricism”,

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/intelligently_sequenced/conversations/topics/757, PAC]

But after demolishing creationists, Crews gives peacemaking scientists their own hiding, reproving them

for trying to show that

there is no contradiction between science and theology. Regardless of what they say to placate the

faithful, most scientists probably know in their hearts that science and religion are incompatible ways

of viewing the world. Supernatural forces and events, essential aspects of most religions, play no role

in science, not because we exclude them deliberately, but because they have never been a useful way

to understand nature. Scientific ‘truths’ are empirically supported observations agreed on by

different observers. Religious „truths,‟ on the other hand, are personal, unverifiable and contested by

those of different faiths. Science is nonsectarian: those who disagree on scientific issues do not

blow each other up. Science encourages doubt; most religions quash it.

But religion is not completely separable from science. Virtually all religions make improbable claims that

are in principle empirically testable, and thus within the domain of science: Mary, in Catholic teaching,

was bodily taken to heaven, while Muhammad rode up on a white horse; and Jesus (born of a virgin)

came back from the dead. None of these claims has been corroborated, and while science would never

accept them as true without evidence, religion does. A mind that accepts both science and religion

is thus a mind in conflict.Yet scientists, especially beleaguered American evolutionists, need the support

of the many faithful who respect science. It is not politically or tactically useful to point out the

fundamental and unbreachable gaps between science and theology. Indeed, scientists and philosophers

have written many books (equivalents of Leibnizian theodicy) desperately trying to show how these

areas can happily cohabit.

In his essay, “Darwin goes to Sunday School”, Crews reviews several of these works, pointing out with

brio the intellectual contortions and dishonesties involved in harmonizing religion and science. Assessing

work by the evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, the philosopher Michael Ruse, the theologian John Haught

and others, Crews concludes, „When coldly examined . . . these productions invariably prove to have

adulterated scientific doctrine or to have emptied religious dogma of its commonly accepted meaning‟.

Rather than suggesting any solution (indeed, there is none save adopting a form of „religion‟ that makes

no untenable empirical claims), Crews points out the dangers to the survival of our planet arising from

a rejection of Darwinism. Such rejection promotes apathy towards overpopulation, pollution,

deforestation and other environmental crimes: “So long as we regard ourselves as creatures apart who

need only repent of our personal sins to retain heaven‟s blessing, we won‟t take the full measure of our

species-wise responsibility for these calamities”.

Crews includes three final essays on deconstruction and other misguided movements in literary theory.

These also show „follies of the wise‟ in that they involve interpretations of texts that are unanchored by

evidence. Fortunately, the harm inflicted by Lacan and his epigones is limited to the good judgement of

professors of literature. Follies of the Wise is one of the most refreshing and edifying collections of

essays in recent years. Much like Christopher Hitchens in the UK, Crews serves a vital function

as National Sceptic. He ends on a ringing note:

“The human race has produced only one successfully validated epistemology, characterizing all

scrupulous inquiry into the real world, from quarks to poems. It is, simply, empiricism, or

the submitting of propositions to the arbitration of evidence that is acknowledged to be such by all of

the contending parties. Ideas that claim immunity from such review, whether because of mystical faith

or privileged „clinical insight‟ or the say-so of eminent authorities, are not to be countenanced until they

can pass the same skeptical ordeal to which all other contenders are subjected.”

Debate of facts is essential to policy making—it checks manipulative actors that result

in scenarios like the war in Iraq

Sokal, New York University, Department of Physics, Lecturer, 8

[Alan, Professor of Mathematics at University College London, Feb 27 2008, “What is

science and why should we care?”,

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/sense_about_science_PUBL.pdf, PAC]

In all these examples I have been at pains to distinguish clearly between factual matters and ethical or

aesthetic matters, because the epistemological issues they raise are so different. And I have restricted

my discussion almost entirely to factual matters, simply because of the limitations of my own

competence.

But if I am preoccupied by the relation between belief and evidence, it is not solely for intellectual

reasons — not solely because I, like my friend Norm Levitt, am “*a+ grumpy old fart who aspire*s+ to

the sullen joy of having it known that *I+ don’t suffer fools gladly”.33 Rather, my concern that public

debate be grounded in the best available evidence is, above all else, ethical.

To illustrate the connection I have in mind between epistemology and ethics, let me start with a

fanciful example: Suppose that the leader of a militarily powerful country believes, sincerely but

erroneously, on the basis of flawed “intelligence”, that a smaller country possesses threatening

weapons of mass destruction; and suppose further that he launches a preemptive war on that basis,

killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians as “collateral damage”. Aren’t he and his supporters

ethically culpable for their epistemic sloppiness?

I stress that this example is fanciful. All the available evidence suggests that the Bush and Blair

administrations first decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and then sought a publicly presentable

pretext, using dubious or even forged “intelligence” to “justify” that pretext and to mislead Congress,

Parliament and the public into supporting that war.34

Which brings me to the last, and in my opinion most dangerous, set of adversaries of the evidence-

based worldview in the contemporary world: namely, propagandists, public-relations flacks and spin

doctors, along with the politicians and corporations who employ them—in short, all those whose goal is

not to analyze honestly the evidence for and against a particular policy, but is simply to manipulate

the public into reaching a predetermined conclusion by whatever technique will work, however

dishonest or fraudulent.

Solvency

No Solvency – AT: Harley

Harley’s method ignores the relationship people have with maps—it’s not about the

maps but rather the bad things people do with maps

Kitchen, Geography Professor at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Perkins

Senior Lecturer of Geography at University of Manchester and Dodge Senior Lecturer

of Human Geography at University of Manchester, 11

( Rob, Chris and Martin, June 2nd 2001, Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, p.

10,11, Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Despite the obvious advances of the various social constructivist approaches in rethinking maps, more

recent work has sought to further refine cartographic thought and to construct post-representational

theories of mapping. Here, scholars are concerned that the critique developed by Harley and others did

not go far enough in rethinking the ontological bases for cartography, which for them has too long been

straitjacketed by representational thinking. As Denis Wood (1993) and Jeremy Crampton (2003) outline,

Harley’s application of Foucault to cartography is limited. Harley’s observations, although opening a new

view onto cartography, stopped short of following Foucault’s line of inquiry to its logical conclusion.

Instead, Crampton (2003: 7) argues that Harley’s writings ‘remained mired in the modernist conception

of maps as documents charged with “confessing” the truth of the landscape’. In other words, Harley

believed that the truth of the landscape could still be revealed if one took account of the ideology

inherent in the representation. The problem was not the map per se, but ‘the bad things people did with

maps’ (Wood 1993: 50, original emphasis); the map conveys an inherent truth as the map remains

ideologically neutral, with ideology bound to the subject of the map and not the map itself. Harley’s

strategy was then to identify the politics of representation in order to circumnavigate them (to reveal

the truth lurking underneath), not fully appreciating, as with Foucault’s observations, that there is no

escaping the entangling of power/knowledge. Crampton’s solution to the limitations of Harley’s social

constructivist thinking is to extend the use of Foucault and to draw on the ideas of Heidegger and other

critical cartographers such as Edney (1993). In short, Crampton (2003: 7) outlines a ‘non-confessional

understanding of spatial representation’ wherein maps instead of ‘being interpreted as objects at a

distance from the world, regarding that world from nowhere, that they be understood as being in the

world, as open to the disclosure of things’. Such a shift, Crampton argues, necessitates a move from

understanding cartography as a set of ontic knowledges to examining its ontological terms. Ontic

knowledge consists of the examination of how a topic should proceed from within its own

framework where the ontological assumptions about how the world can be known and measured are

implicitly secure and beyond doubt (Crampton 2003). In other words, there is a core foundational

knowledge – a taken for granted ontology – that unquestioningly underpins ontic knowledge.

Lol Harley

Kitchen, Geography Professor at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Perkins

Senior Lecturer of Geography at University of Manchester and Dodge Senior Lecturer

of Human Geography at University of Manchester, 11

( Rob, Chris and Martin, June 2nd 2001, Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, p.

10,11, Accessed 6/30/14, ESB)

Despite the obvious advances of the various social constructivist approaches in rethinking maps, more

recent work has sought to further refine cartographic thought and to construct post-representational

theories of mapping. Here, scholars are concerned that the critique developed by Harley and others did

not go far enough in rethinking the ontological bases for cartography, which for them has too long been

straitjacketed by representational thinking. As Denis Wood (1993) and Jeremy Crampton (2003) outline,

Harley’s application of Foucault to cartography is limited. Harley’s observations, although opening a

new view onto cartography, stopped short of following Foucault’s line of inquiry to its logical

conclusion. Instead, Crampton (2003: 7) argues that Harley’s writings ‘remained mired in the modernist

conception of maps as documents charged with “confessing” the truth of the landscape’. In

other words, Harley believed that the truth of the landscape could still be revealed if one took account

of the ideology inherent in the representation. The problem was not the map per se, but ‘the bad

things people did with maps’ (Wood 1993: 50, original emphasis); the map conveys an inherent truth

as the map remains ideologically neutral, with ideology bound to the subject of the map and not the

map itself. Harley’s strategy was then to identify the politics of representation in order to

circumnavigate them (to reveal the truth lurking underneath), not fully appreciating, as with Foucault’s

observations, that there is no escaping the entangling of power/knowledge. Crampton’s solution to the

limitations of Harley’s social constructivist thinking is to extend the use of Foucault and to draw on the

ideas of Heidegger and other critical cartographers such as Edney (1993). In short, Crampton (2003: 7)

outlines a ‘non-confessional understanding of spatial representation’ wherein maps instead of ‘being

interpreted as objects at a distance from the world, regarding that world from nowhere, that they be

understood as being in the world, as open to the disclosure of things’. Such a shift, Crampton argues,

necessitates a move from understanding cartography as a set of ontic knowledges to examining its

ontological terms. Ontic knowledge consists of the examination of how a topic should proceed from

within its own framework where the ontological assumptions about how the world can be known

and measured are implicitly secure and beyond doubt (Crampton 2003). In other words, there is a core

foundational knowledge – a taken for granted ontology – that unquestioningly underpins ontic

knowledge.

No Solvency

Mapping can be used for bad ends - aff can’t control outcome

Steinberg, Florida State University Political Geography Professor, 1999

*Philip E., April, “Lines of Division, Lines of Connection: Stewardship in the World Ocean,” Geographical

Review, Volume: 89, page 254-264, JO]

Discourse on the geography of the sea, particularly by political geographers, frequently revolves

around lines of division: How is a boundary line calculated? How is it communicated? What activities

should be permitted behind the line? The confusion and misunderstanding surrounding the Tordesillas

line should demonstrate that a perspective wherein lines are perceived solely as graphic

representations of division leaves one with, at best, a partial understanding of history and the social

construction of space. I have argued that the Tordesillas line should be viewed not so much as a radical

division of the ocean but, rather, as one in a long series of events adjusting a long-standing, and

continuing, system of marine stewardship.

In fact, lines in ocean space frequently serve purposes quite apart from the end of division. For

eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sailors from Europe and North America, perhaps the most socially

meaningful "line" was the equator. "Crossing the line" was an event celebrated by the ritual dunking of

sailors upon their first venture into Southern Hemisphere waters. Other lines often found on maps,

such as those depicting common ocean routes, graphically represent vectors of connection. Still other

lines, including latitude and longitude lines, rhumb lines, and bathymetric lines, facilitate the making

of these connections. Indeed, even the Tordesillas line may be viewed as a line of connection, because it

facilitated the connection of Portugal and Spain with their distant land territories. When one destroys

the myth of individual states having or even desiring absolute control of ocean space—which is

implied by graphic representations but has never been a reality—lines take on a variety of meanings

that constitute, complement, and, at times, push the limits of the dominant norm of stewardship.

Just as this discussion suggests that we think twice before accepting that lines drawn across ocean

space necessarily divide, it also suggests that we rethink the entire dichotomy of division and

connection in the context of the broader norm of marine stewardship. Stewardship historically has

been exercised by various entities, including the state, the church, commercial interests, and the

populace at large. At different times the norm of stewardship has been operationalized by one actor

over all known ocean space, by individual actors in their discrete, parceled domains, and collectively

by a community of actors. It has been implemented for a range of ends, from military mobility to the

conservation of the ocean's living resources.

Cartography can be manipulated

Lennox, Assistant Professor of History at the Public Affairs Center Wesleyan, 2007

*Jeffers, September 2007, “An Empire on Paper: The Founding of Halifax and Conceptions of

Imperial Space, 1744–55” Canadian Historical Review, 88 (3), Project Muse, accessed 6-25-14,

J.J.]

As the late John Brian Harley has argued, maps are more than precise representations of physical

space; they are tools of empire that create knowledge and power through their representative

functions. Harley pioneered the field of ‘critical cartography’ and encouraged historians to engage with

the social, political, economic power of maps. Geographic and cartographic knowledge can be

interpreted in two ways: first, maps and geographic surveys attempt to reflect accurately the position

and characteristics of physical landforms, thereby bestowing on cartography the status of a science;

second, because of this perceived scientific authority, cartography can be manipulated by the map-

maker or map-reader and infused with symbolic meaning to illustrate a certain point of view, be it

political, social, or otherwise. Working from the tenets of critical cartography, this article will examine

the influence of cartographic and geographic knowledge on the founding of Halifax in 1749.

Harley concedes aff can’t control outcome

Harley, Director of the Office of Map History in the American Geographical Society

Collection, 89

*JB, Spring 1989, “Deconstructing the Map,” CARTOGRAPHICA VOL 26 No 2 , page 13-14,

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-

map?rgn=main;view=fulltext, PAC]

I come now to the important distinction. What is also central to the effects of¶ maps in society is what

may be defined as the power internal to cartography. The focus of inquiry therefore shifts from the

place of cartography in a juridical system of power to the political effects of what cartographers do

when they make¶ maps. Cartographers manufacture power: they create a spatial panopticon. It is a¶

power embedded in the map text. We can talk about the power of the map just as¶ we already talk

about the power of the word or about the book as a force for¶ change. In this sense maps have

politics.76¶ It is a power that intersects and is¶ embedded in knowledge. It is universal. Foucault writes

of¶ The omnipresence of power: not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything¶ under its

invincible unity, but because it is produced from one moment to the next, at every¶ point, or rather in

every relation from one point to another. Power is everywhere; not¶ because it embraces everything,

but because it comes from everywhere.77¶ Power comes from the map and it traverses the way maps

are made. The key to this¶ internal power is thus cartographic process. By this I mean the way maps

are¶ compiled and the categories of information selected; the way they are generalized,¶ a set of rules

for the abstraction of the landscape; the way the elements in the¶ landscape are formed into

hierarchies; and the way various rhetorical styles that¶ also reproduce power are employed to

represent the landscape. To catalogue the¶ world is to appropriate it,78¶ so that all these technical

processes represent acts of¶ control over its image which extend beyond the professed uses of

cartography.¶ The world is disciplined. The world is normalized. We are prisoners in its spatial¶ matrix.

For cartography as much as other forms of knowledge, "All social action¶ flows through boundaries

determined by classification schemes."79¶ An analogy is¶ to what happens to data in the cartographer's

workshop and what happens to¶ people in the disciplinary institutions - prisons, schools, armies,

factories - described by Foucault:80¶ in both cases a process of normaliztion occurs. Or similarly,¶ just as

in factories we standardize our manufactured goods so in our cartographic¶ workshops we standardize

our images of the world. Just as in the laboratory we¶ create formulaic understandings of the processes

of the physical world so too, in¶ the map, nature is reduced to a graphic formula.81¶ The power of the

mapmaker¶ was not generally exercised over individuals but over the knowledge of the world¶ made

available to people in general. Yet this is not consciously done and it¶ transcends the simple

categories of 'intended' and 'unintended' altogether. I am¶ not suggesting that power is deliberately

or centrally exercised. It is a local¶ knowledge which at the same time is universal. It usually passes

unnoticed. The¶ map is a silent arbiter of power.¶

What have been the effects of this 'logic of the map' upon human consciousness, if I may adapt Marshall

McLuhan's phrase ("logic of print")?82¶ Like him I¶ believe we have to consider for maps the effects of

abstraction, uniformity,¶ repeatability, and visuality in shaping mental structures, and in imparting a

sense¶ of the places of the world. It is the disjunction between those senses of place, and¶ many

alternative visions of what the world is, or what it might be, that has raised questions about the effect

of cartography in society. Thus, Theodore Roszac writes The cartographers are talking about their maps

and not landscapes. That is why what they say frequently becomes so paradoxical when translated into

ordinary language. When they forget the difference between map and landscape — and when they

permit or persuade us to forget that difference — all sorts of liabilities ensue.83 One of these 'liabilities'

is that maps, by articulating the world in mass-produced and stereotyped images, express an

embedded social vision. Consider, for example, the fact that the ordinary road atlas is among the best

selling paperback books in the United States84¶ and then try to gauge how this may have affected

ordinary Americans' perception of their country. What sort of an image of America do these atlases

promote? On the one hand, there is a patina of gross simplicity. Once off the interstate highways the

landscape dissolves into a generic world of bare essentials that invites no exploration. Context is

stripped away and place is no longer important. On the other hand, the maps reveal the ambivalence of

all stereotypes. Their silences are also inscribed on the page: where, on the page, is the variety of nature,

where is the history of the landscape, and where is the space-time of human experience in such

anonymized maps?85 The question has now become: do such empty images have their consequences in

the way we think about the world? Because all the world is designed to look the same, is it easier to act

upon it without realizing the social effects? It is in the posing of such questions that the strategies of

Derrida and Foucault appear to clash. For Derrida, if meaning is undecidable so must be, pari passu, the

measurement of the force of the map as a discourse of symbolic action. In ending, I prefer to align

myself with Foucault in seeing all knowledge86¶ — and hence cartography — as thoroughly enmeshed

with the larger battles which constitute our world. Maps are not external to these struggles to alter

power relations. The history of map use suggests that this may be so and that maps embody specific

forms of power and authority. Since the Renaissance they have changed the way in which power was

exercised. In colonial North America, for example, it was easy for Europeans to draw lines across the

territories of Indian nations without sensing the reality of their political identity.87¶ The map allowed

them to say, "This is mine; these are the boundaries."88¶ Similarly, in innumerable wars since the

sixteenth century it has been equally easy for the generals to fight battles with colored pins and dividers

rather than sensing the slaughter of the battlefield.89¶ Or again, in our own society, it is still easy for

bureaucrats, developers and 'planners' to operate on the bodies of unique places without measuring

the social dislocations of 'progress.' While the map is never the reality, in such ways it helps to create

a different reality. Once embedded in the published text the lines on the map acquire an authority that

may be hard to dislodge. Maps are authoritarian images. Without our being aware of it maps can

reinforce and legitimate the status quo. Sometimes agents of change, they can equally become

conservative documents. But in either case the map is never neutral. Where it seems to be neutral it is

the sly "rhetoric of neutrality"90 that is trying to persuade us.

No Solvency

Mediated ocean encounters can’t overcome landed thinking

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff University, & Peters,

Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, 2014

[Jon & Kimberly, Water Worlds Human Geographies of the Ocean, p. 9 -10, J.J.]

The alternative, if one is to write about the ocean as a non-objectified arena, is to approach it as a

space that is not so much known as experienced; less a space that we live on (or, more often, gaze at)

than one that we live in; less a two-dimensional surface than a four-dimensional sphere; a space that

we think from (Anderson 2012).

However, there are two obstacles to applying this perspective to ocean-space. The first is that the

ocean, as a material space, is particularly difficult to grasp. As Massey (2005) has demonstrated, a

representation of space extracted from time obscures the social processes that constitute space (and

time). Therefore, a point on and, as represented on a map, or, for that matter, in a planning

document, is a false staticization of social processes. The same is certainly true for a point in the

ocean. However, unlike a point on land (unless one thinks in geological time), the representation of a

point in ocean-space is also a false staticization of geophysical processes. The ocean is constituted by

vectors of movement - tides, currents, and waves - but these vectors do not simply occur in the ocean;

they are the ocean (Steinberg 2011). As such, it is impossible to 'locate' a point at sea as an actual

material lace. Baudrillard's (2001) observation about the map preceding territory is as true at sea as it

is on land. But in the ocean there is a further iteration because the territory subsequently washes

away the map. Thus we can never truly 'locate' ourselves within the ocean. Or, if we must locate

ourselves, we require a different kind of 'map'.

And this connects to the second problem that emerges as we approach the ocean: Our encounters with

the sea are always mediated. Whether by ships, scuba tanks, surfboards, or bodily movements, as well

as, less physically, by stories, memories, sea shanties, fears, or dreams, our encounters with the sea are

never 'pure'. There is always an outer layer between us and the sea that keeps us - and our

experiences and thoughts - afloat. As countless philosophers, most notably Kant (1999), have shown,

this is a problem endemic to humans regardless of their environment. But it is particularly profound at

sea, where both survival and interpretation require reliance on resources that we are aware we have

borrowed from somewhere else.

To understand the subjectivity of the map, we should focus on the relationships things

have with each other

Wood, Cartographer and Fels North Carolina State University GIS Program Graduate 8

*Denis; John; “The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World,” Cartographica

Volume 43, Issue 3, page 191-192, accessed via ebscohost, PAC]

This is there – that tree – and this is there and this is there:¶ through spatial magic the existence of

the tree is¶ transmuted into the existence of a forest, the existence¶ of the forest is transfigured into

the existence of an¶ ecosystem, the existence of the ecosystem is transmogrified into the existence of

nature. Nature. In space. As a¶ spatial thing.¶ But the map can’t leave well enough alone. It wouldn’t

be¶ a map if it did. If it stopped at this atomic level – at the¶ level of spatialized thing – the map would

amount to a¶ kind of spatial ontology. What makes the map a map is its¶ exploitation of spatialized

things – themselves propositions (this is there) – as the subjects of yet higher order¶ propositions (this

is there and therefore it is also ...). The¶ map is these propositions. Technically, a proposition is a¶

statement in which the subject is affirmed or denied by its¶ predicate (this is there). Take this ginseng

plant. The map¶ affirms of this ginseng plant (the proposition’s subject)¶ that it is, and therefore that it

is also in, which is to say of,¶ the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (the proposition’s predicate). It

could be the other way around (there¶ is this). The map equally affirms of the park (the new¶

proposition’s subject) that it is, and therefore that it also¶ contains ginseng (the new proposition’s

predicate). Either¶ way the map links the plant and the park.¶ In so doing it connects the plant to the

system of rules and¶ regulations that is just another way of saying ‘‘national¶ park.’’ The park is not a

collection of trees, shrubs, and¶ other wildlife. That would just be a forest. The park is a¶ way of

relating to trees, shrubs, and other wildlife. These¶ ways of relating are codified in rules and

regulations.¶ Some of these forbid the culling of ginseng. To cull¶ ginseng in the Great Smoky Mountains

National Park is¶ therefore to poach. To cull ginseng outside the park, say¶ across the road in a national

forest (Pisgah or Nantahala),¶ or on private land, is either to harvest or to steal,¶ depending on how

the map in question links the theres of¶ the plants in question to the relevant systems of rules and¶

regulations, codes and laws (to the relevant property¶ rights). In the national forest, where trees can be

cut,¶ animals hunted, and plants gathered and sold, anyone can¶ get a permit to cull ginseng. Poaching

from private land,¶ on the other hand, is a larceny.¶ Note that at this point a territory has been invoked.

It has¶ a national park, national forests, and parcels of private¶ property. These are all equivalently

subjects of different¶ propositions made by the maps that invoke the territory.¶ It is through the

simultaneous affirmation of these¶ propositions that the territory as such is brought into¶ being.

What assures us that the propositions are true?¶ That they state facts? Only the social assent given

them, the¶ confirmation by the courts and by the court of public¶ opinion, the voice of newspapers,

and friends: ‘‘You¶ shouldn’t have been in the park. You should have stayed¶ in the forest on the other

side of the road.’’

No solvency – Aff is Landed

Aff remains trapped in landed thinking

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cardiff, UK,

Peters, Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK., 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

According to Raban, this intimate knowing of water worlds was supplanted in the West by the advent

of modern technology, starting with the use of a compass and sextant and extending through to

twenty-first century exploitation of satellite telemetry and geographical positioning systems. For

Raban, ‘the arrival of the magnetic compass caused a fundamental rift in the relationship between

man [sic] and sea’ (1999: 95). Possession of a compass, rendered obsolete a great body of inherited,

instinctual knowledge, and rendered the sea itself – in fair weather, at least – as a void, an empty

space to be traversed by a numbered rhumb line. (1999: 97) Yet, as this volume demonstrates, there

remains an embodied knowledge waiting to surface in Western (as well as non-Western)

contemporary engagements with the water. Many individuals and cultures now understand and

experience the sea as a ‘place’ with character, agency and personality (see Laloe, Anderson, Merchant,

Hallaire and McKay, this volume). As Anderson explains with respect to surfing practice, when

encountering and riding a wave, boarders experience ‘stoke’, a ‘“feeling of intense elation’”, ‘“a fully

embodied feeling of satisfaction, joy and pride’” (2012: 576, citing Evers 2006: 229–300). As such, this

volume examines how humans do not just imagine water worlds, they actively engage with them in a

wholly embodied way. Such embodied practice with water makes possible the writing of new

corporeal experiences, impossible to fathom through landed, grounded explorations alone.

Cartography of Debate Aff uses ocean as simply site to explore landed live, recreates ocean inferiority

Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cardiff, UK,

Peters, Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK., 2014

[Dr. Jon, Dr. Kimberley, February 2014, Ashgate, “Water Worlds: Human Geographies of the

Ocean,” http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Water-Worlds-Human-Geographies-of-

the-Ocean-Intro.pdf, accessed 6-27-14, J.J.]

Although using the sea as a conceptual device to understand such processes is an important objective,

such studies nevertheless serve to reinforce the apparent superiority of landed life to the detriment of

investigation into the sea in and of itself. To be clear, this is not to advocate that water worlds are

taken as a ‘perfect and absolute’ bounded space to examine in opposition to the attention paid to the

land. Indeed, much of the richness of recent work that has incorporated the sea demonstrates how

water worlds are spaces across which new connections, knowledges and experiences are realized (see

Armitage and Braddick 2002, Featherstone 2005, Lambert 2005, Ogborn 2002). Indeed, the sea is a

space intrinsically connected to and absorbed within a broader network of spaces (earth and air)

which are also, likewise, porous, open and convergent with each other. However, we do argue that

oceans and seas are recognized as equally fundamental within processes of socio-cultural, political

and economic transformation, rather than acting merely as conceptual devices for understanding

those processes. Accordingly, we contend (along with others, Steinberg 2001, Lambert et al. 2006) that

where the seas feature in scholarship, they are not merely present as a secondary concern, but are

fully folded into geographical research, ‘demonstrating the potential – perhaps even freedom –

offered by the sea’ (Lambert et al. 2006: 480).

Borderlands Mestiza Identity Bad

Metaphorical readings of the “borderlands” displace the cultural reality of the site in

favor a particular vision that silences the Mexican perspective

Vaquera-Vásquez, Assistant Professor of Hispanic Southwest Studies, ’98 (Santiago,

“WANDERING IN THE BORDERLANDS: MAPPING AN IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BORDER”, Latin

American Issues, Texas A&M - Latin American Issues 14 Article 6, AA).

http://sites.allegheny.edu/latinamericanstudies/latin-american-issues/volume-14/#article-vi)

In contemporary cultural theory, the metaphor of the Borderlands has become a repository in which

all manners of cultural Otherness is contained. The assumption is that "border thinking" posits a

contestatory space for emerging cultures; it shapes the concepts of national and cultural authenticity

and promotes global and transnational processes. The border has become referred to so often, as Trinh

T. Minh-ha notes, that "it already runs the risk of being reduced to yet another harmless catchword

expropriated and popularized among progressive thinkers" (2). And yet, the Borderlands metaphor

resonates even more at the end of the century, when borders are continually crossed and recrossed. In

focusing on geographic borderlands, more specifically, the borderlands between Mexico and the United

States, metaphorical readings often displace the cultural reality of the site in favor of a particular

border vision. In cultural discourse on the US/Mexico Borderlands, the dominant inscriptions are most

often that of the Chicano and that of a global communal space. The region has been variously encoded

as Aztlán--the pre-Columbian mythic past which is the cornerstone of the Chicano movement--and more

recently as "Borderlands," the universal cultural construct representing the encounter of diverse

cultures, genders, social classes, and world-views. As observed by Claire Fox, the Borderlands has come

to replace Aztlán as "the metaphor of choice to designate a communal space" (61). This favoring of a

universal reading of the Borderlands in contemporary criticism tends towards the collapsing of the

distinct geographic differences between border regions and the abrogation of the cultural production

of writers and critics in that region for an authentication of the border "reality" through a small

number of primarily Chicano critics and writers. In this appropriation of the border, the Mexican

perspective is largely silenced; there has been little interest in promoting the vision of the border as

viewed from the northern Mexican border provinces.1 As a result, the image of the borderlands that is

generally preferred is far removed from the multi-faceted reality of the site, a fact which puts into

question the validity of the Borderlands metaphor: To what degree does current discourse on the

Borderlands illuminate the border region, and to what degree does it obscure the very region to which

much of this discourse is addressed? The present work aims to redress this oversight by focusing on the

diverse "imaginative geographies" which arise from the Borderlands. In so doing, the work contributes

to the formulation of a more extensive and complete account of border culture in general, and of the

US/Mexico border in particular.

The adoption of the mestiza identity erases all cultural traditions and history where it

becomes one disembodied metaphor anyone can claim.

Donadey , Department of European Studies and Women’s Studies at SDSU,‘7 (Anne,

Department of European Studies and Women’s Studies at San Diego State University, “Overlapping and

Interlocking Frames for Humanities Literature Studies: Assia Djebar, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Gloria Anzaldua,” College

Literature, Fall, Volume: 34(4), p. 23,AA)

In an important essay on the centrality of Anzaldúa’s work, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano cautions against

“universalizing the theory of mestiza or border consciousness, which the text painstakingly grounds in

specific historical and cultural experiences” (1998, 13) in order to preclude “*a+ppropriative readings” in

which everyone becomes a mestiza and difference and specificity are erased (14; see also Phelan 1997;

Castillo 2006). While I agree with Yarbro-Bejarano that what Emma Pérez (1999) would call Anzaldúa’s

“decolonial imaginary” should not be flattened out by a post-modern translation of the concept of

borderlands that would erase its historical and cultural grounding by turning it into a disembodied

metaphor that all can come to claim, it is also important to remember that Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La

Frontera has at least two levels of address: one deals with the specificity of the Chicana/o history in the

U.S./Mexican borderlands; the other seeks to make a space for Chicanas/os and others whose identities

cannot be reduced to binaries in a variety of locations, including the academy. Anzaldúa’s first words in

Borderlands/La Frontera emphasize this very multiplicity of addresses: “The actual physical borderland

that I’m dealing with in this book is the Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border. The psychological

borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest.”

(1999, 19). Thinking of academic fields of study through the model of borders and borderlands is, I

believe, a way to follow up on an important insight of Anzaldúa’s, rather than an appropriation of her

work.

Their border analogy is ridiculous – not only are all borders different, but their silly

comparison to T devalues the experiences of migrants

Vila, Associate Professor of Sociology at the UT San Antonio,05 - (Pablo, “Conclusion: The

Limits of American Border Theory,” Ethnography at the Border, Ed. Pablo Vila, p.307-315,AA)

After dominating the field for some time, this corpus of work has come under criticism in recent years. This criticism does not deny the

pathbreaking character of those books but seeks to address several short- comings that have now become apparent. As Heyman points out, "A

single-image representing grand theoretical assertions is too general for the political and economic environment

of the border. I propose that we specify our analytical tools for the border: that is, that we respect the concretely located

nature of the Mexico-U.S. border" (1994, 43). Thus several authors have lately advanced different criticisms of mainstream border

theory. First, some Mexican scholars (Tabuenca, Barrera) have complained that the U.S.-Mexico border most of this work portrays

with such theo- retical sophistication has little resemblance to the border they experience from the other side of the

(literal) fence. Second, other writers have noted the exclusionary character of border studies and theory exemplified in these major works

and claim that current mainstream border theory essentializes the cultures that must be crossed. Third, as I claim

hereafter, in the vast majority of recent border scholarship, there is a general failure to pursue the theoretical

possibility that fragmentation of experience can lead to the reinforcement of borders instead of an

invitation to cross them. Thus crossing borders, and not reinforcing borders, is the preferred metaphor in current border studies and

theory. Fourth, a corollary of the previous trend is the tendency to construct the border crosser or the hybrid (in some cases the Latin American

inter- national immigrant in general, but in others the Chicano in particular— at least in the books I am criticizing here) into a new "privileged

subject of history." Fifth, border studies have recently moved from the study of is- sues related to the U.S.-Mexico border

in particular to broader themes, in which the metaphor of borders is used to represent any situation

where limits are involved. Border studies thus takes as its own object of inquiry any physical or psychic

space about which it is possible to address problems of boundaries: borders among different countries, borders

among ethnicities within the United States, borders between genders, borders among disciplines, and the like. Borderlands

and border crossings seem to have become ubiquitous terms to represent the experience of (some)

people in a postmodern world described as fragmented and continually producing new borders that

must again and again be crossed. And if current border studies and theory propose that borders are everywhere,

the border-crossing experience is in some instances assumed to be similar: that is, it seems that for the "border crosser"

or the "hybrid," the experience of moving among different disciplines, different ethnicities, and different

countries and cultures is not dissimilar in character (Grossberg 1996). This approach not only homogenizes

distinctive experiences but also homogenizes borders.' Sixth, there is a tendency in current border studies and theory to

confiise the sharing of a culture with the sharing of an identity, so that use of the "third country" metaphor promotes the

idea that Fronterizo Mexicans and Mexican Americans construct their social and cultural identities in similar

ways. My criticism here is that it is quite possible to share aspects of the same culture while developing quite different narrative identities, to

the point, in some instances, where the "other kind of Mexican" is constructed as the abject "other." Finally, in some extreme circumstances

and in particular locales, these theoretical processes have developed a version of identity politics on the U.S.-Mcxico border that rely on the

metaphor of "brotherhood"-— meaning the purportedly intrinsic connections between Mexican na- tionals, Mexican immigrants, and Chicanos.

Yet because that brotherhood does not exist in particular border situations (as exemplified, for instance, in Mexican

American support for Operation Blockade in the region dealt with in this collection), this form of identity politics is doomed to

failure.

Border analogies lead to poor analysis about oppressive structures – turns the case

Ang, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Western Sydney,98 -, Nepean (Ien,

“Doing cultural studies at the crossroads,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 1 Article 1, p. 27-28,AA)

As I have already suggested, an explicitly comparative e perspective is called for here, as the strategy of comparison implies an awareness of

difference as its episte- mological stimulus while at the same time, in its very requirement of juxtaposing at least two realities, being a guard

against exaggerated notions of uniqueness and incommensurability. Thus, we should expect as much as we can, say, from a dialogue

between Gloria Anzaldua and Iain Chambers; and put as much effort as we can in the substantiation and

specification of the metaphors and concepts we use to establish our common grounds. This is not altogether

different from the ideal of cosmopolitalism, embraced by Bruce Robbins not, in his words, 4as a false universal1 but *as an impulse to

knowledge that is shared with others, a striving to transcend partiality that is itself partial, but no more so than the similar cognitive strivings of

many diverse peoples' (ibid.: 194). This, of course, returns us straight to the borderlands, the arena where the sharing of partial

perspectives and knowledges are supposed to take place, in what Robbins (ibid.: 196) calls 'a long-term process of translocal connecting". What

I have tried to emphasize in this chapter, however, is the practical fact that there are limits to the sharing we can do, that there

is only so much (or so little) that we can share. Indeed, I think we could only stand to gain from the recognition that any process of

'translocal connecting' not only needs hard work, but, more importantly, can only be partial also. I would even

suggest that our crossroads encounters would be more productive if we recognize the moments of actual

disconnection rather than hold on to the abstract Utopian ideal of connection so bound up with

celebrations of the borderlands. For it is in the realization and problematization of such moments of actual

disconnection - that is, moments when the act of meaningful comparison and communication reaches its limits - that the material

consequences of difference, of the irreducible and unrepresentable specificity and particularity of 'the

local' are most bluntly exposed, but always-already within the translocal context within which that 'local' is distinctively

constituted. In short, it is at moments when comprehending my local-specific narrative becomes problematic to you, my reader, when such

comprehension seems muted because I do not seem to speak in familiar discourse, that the malleability of general

theoretical concepts such as 'race', 'nation' and 'identity', not to mention metaphors such as the

'borderlands' and the 'crossroads', becomes evident. It is the ways in which we both do and do not share these (and many

other) concepts and metaphors across local/particular/spccific boundaries that we should begin to interrogate and highlight.

Critiques

Indigenous Mapping K

Indigenous PIK

Vote neg to affirm _____ from an Indigenous starting point

Counter Cartography fails within indigenous communities—experts lose the

knowledge in translation and create a façade for western epistemology to thrive

behind and turns the case

Johnson, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Department of Anthropology and

Geography, et al, 6

[Jay T., Renee Pualani Louis, Department of Geography, Univeristy of Hawai’I at Mānoa,

Albertus Hadi Pramono, Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa,

“Facing the Future: Encouraging Critical Cartographic Literacies In Indigenous

Communities”, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Volume 4,

Number 1, pg 87-88 PAC]

Many, if not most “counter-mapping” projects, are projects designed to dramatically increase the

power of people living in a mapped area to control the representations of themselves and to increase

their control of resources (Peluso, 1995: 387), and in addition assume that a basic level of Western

cartographic knowledge is sufficient for Indigenous communities to engage with this technoscience.

Many, if not most “counter-mapping” projects leave cartographic literacy to the imported ‘expert’

who attempts to translate Indigenous place biographies onto the Western map that underlies their

project. Unfortunately, as Rundstrom observes, “*the] prevailing Cartesian-Newtonian… epistemology

does not prize key characteristics of indigenous thinking, including; the principle of the ubiquity of

relatedness; non-anthropocentricity; a cyclical concept of time; a more synthetic than analytic view of

the construction of geographical knowledge; non-binary thinking; the idea that facts cannot be

dissociated from values; that precise ambiguity exists and can be advantageous; an emphasis on oral

performance and other non-inscriptive means of representation; and the presence of morality in all

actions” (1998: 7-8). Counter-mapping projects face the task of translating community information

based within these key characteristics of Indigenous thinking and when this task is left to the

uninitiated outside expert, much is lost in that translation.

One issue in Indigenous mapping projects which effectively demonstrates this loss of information in

translation is the pervasive difficulty with fixed boundaries (Brody, 1982; Chapin, 1998; Chapin et al.,

2001; Fox, 1998; Kosek, 1998; Peluso, 1995; Rundstrom, 1998). While Indigenous communities generally

recognize fluid and flexible boundaries over land and resource use, once these boundaries become

fixed within a Western cartographic representation, the fluid and flexible nature of Indigenous

thinking is lost (Fox, 1998: 3). Based on several case studies from Southeast Asia, Fox et al. (2005) have

noted that within Indigenous counter-mapping projects these newly fixed boundaries serve to shift the

social relations both within and between communities, unfortunately encouraging the development

of a notion of private property where one did not previously exist. One attempt to translate

Indigenous understandings of boundaries onto Western maps is in drawing a distinction between use

and occupancy observing that use maps generate artificial overlap (Tobias, 2000). This is one technique

which can force Indigenous knowledge to fit within the fixed boundaries of the Western map and can

provide valuable representations in legal proceedings but in the end, it is a technique which further

perpetuates the loss of Indigenous geographic knowledge. Another failure of translation can be seen in

the loss of place names and their associated role in creating and re/creating local knowledge. As Louis

has observed, “*i+n Hawaiian cartography place names are mnemonic

symbols [which when] performed in daily rituals are a conscious act of reimplacing genealogical

connections, re-creating cultural landscapes, and regenerating cultural mores” (2004: 4). With the

introduction of Western cartography, Hawaiian place names, and the essential role they have played

in ‘recreating cultural landscapes’ become the (un)intentional victims of cartographic translation. In

both examples the underlying problem is the difference of worldviews and practices in which Western

and Indigenous cartographies evolve.

Encouraging the development of critical cartographic literacy within Indigenous communities requires

more than the basic level of cartographic education developed in many, if not most ‘counter-mapping’

projects. When these projects maintain the cartographic expertise with the outside expert and do not

encourage the development of Western cartographic literacy within Indigenous communities they are

denying these communities the ability to become agents in their own mapping projects. The political

and epistemological effects of involving outside experts in the form of researchers, NGOs and

cartographers is too often overlooked (Kosek, 1998: 4). Unfortunately, as Rundstrom observes, “most

still imagine that the production of a “one-world” view through pursuit of countermapping projects

worldwide is benign and helpful in protecting the status of others. I have come around to thinking

though, that our little habit may be just another manifestation of the White Man’s Burden” (1998: 8).

The development of critical cartographic literacy within Indigenous communities has been the work of

a handful of cartographers, academics and organizations engaged in ‘counter-mapping’ projects, such

as the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative and the Aboriginal Mapping Network. Well trained

Indigenous cartographers, like Moka Apiti in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Renee Pualani Louis in Hawai‘i,

have been using their education within the Cartesian/Newtonian cartographic epistemology to

translate Indigenous geographic knowledge for Western audiences, producing autoethnographic

cartographies (see Louis, 2004; Pratt, 1992). Both the work of these organizations and Indigenous

cartographers trained in Western techniques assists in bringing a greater degree of cartographic literacy

to Indigenous communities. In the end though, we must admit as Rundstrom has, that “counter-

mapping and GIS can provide at best no more than a simulacrum of indigenous or non-Western

geographies” (1998: 9). And, the initiatives encouraging critical cartographic literacy within Indigenous

communities are far from the norm among ‘counter-mapping’ projects.

Only an indigenous based method solves -Also solves the entirety of the aff

Johnson, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Department of Anthropology and

Geography, et al, 6

[Jay T., Renee Pualani Louis, Department of Geography, Univeristy of Hawai’I at Mānoa,

Albertus Hadi Pramono, Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa,

“Facing the Future: Encouraging Critical Cartographic Literacies In Indigenous

Communities”, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Volume 4,

Number 1, pg 89-90 PAC]

In order to re-educate the ‘colonized mind’ in relation to cartography’s role in colonial dispossession a

pedagogic focus is called for within ‘counter-mapping’ projects. Indigenous communities need to

become aware not only of the historical role of cartography in their dispossession but also in the ways

in which cartography continues to betray these same communities today, even when the maps/GIS

being produced are objectively intended to benefit their interests. Of course we agree with Sparke when

he says that “*s+howing how cartography can operate both for and against colonialism not only

deepens the scholarly work of critical cartography, it also counters the too-speedy denunciation of

maps and mapping as metaphors of domination” (1998: 466). Let us paint a worst case scenario though

for how the uncritical adoption of Western cartographic techniques can serve to perpetuate colonial

dispossessions. First, putting indigenous knowledge into a GIS makes it tangible and accessible. It may

even diminish it, as Rundstrom has observed, because it is no longer contextually defined (1998).

Secondly, storing information within a GIS makes it easier for that information to be used beyond its

original intent and context. Lastly, because the source and recipient of the information is separated in

space and time it becomes more difficult to impose moral restraint on its use. Indigenous

communities need to understand the full implications of their engagement with Western cartographic

techniques and we believe that can be achieved through education that encourages a critical

cartographic literacy.

We envision two different but not mutually exclusive paths toward creating critical cartographic literacy

within Indigenous communities. First, as has been alluded to, ‘counter-mapping’ projects need to make

critical education, preferably through a Freirean ‘problem posing’ technique, an integral part of their

program. Here the outsiders and Indigenous community members, as knowing Subjects, learn together

to problematize the spatial realities represented within the mapping process and investigate the

impacts of this process on Indigenous mapping. In this process both groups gain and give new

meanings to the world which feeds into their map production. To date, dialogue in counter-mapping

has been problematic because many researchers/map makers envision Western cartographic

techniques as the perfect/sole solution to the land and resource dispossessions of the communities in

which they are working. To truly engage in a dialogic counter mapping process, it would be beneficial

if outside experts engage in identifying their own ‘colonized mentality’ before attempting to create

critical consciousness among the community. They should embrace a ‘border crossing’ in order to move

beyond their own cultural roots allowing them to feel comfortable within various zones of cultural

diversity (Giroux, 1995). This means that outside cartographers/mapmakers must understand

Indigenous cartographies and make every effort to incorporate these diverse knowledge systems into

a ‘new’ mapping endeavor which will strive toward a post-colonial, post-modern cartography

(Turnbull, 1998). This understanding though may require an extensive apprenticeship within which

outsiders learn the language, cultural values and knowledge systems that underlie Indigenous

cartographies.

The second path we envision for bringing critical cartographic literacy into Indigenous communities

entails community members becoming adept in the Cartesian/Newtonian cartographic epistemology.

Skilled Indigenous cartographers can act as advocates as well as technicians for their own and other

Indigenous communities. They can also become key agents and educators within Indigenous

communities, building critical cartographic literacy through their understanding of the epistemological

divide between Western and Indigenous cartographic systems. These steps toward critical

cartographic literacy are only the beginning of what will be required for Indigenous communities in

their response to and engagement with Western cartographic technologies. We envision that the

development of a critical consciousness in relation to cartographic representation will lay the

foundation to addressing more concrete issues related to this engagement such as reflexivity

concerning the use of these technologies and the internal community critique of the maps produced.

Perspectives of the Pacific are flawed—need to take indigenous mapping into perspective

Jolly, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia 7

(Margaret Jolly, “Imagining Oceania: Indigenous and Foreign Representations of a Sea of Islands”, The

Contemporary Pacific, Volume 19, Number 2, 508–545, accessed 6/30/14) NM

In imagining any region of the world today we often start with cartography—

with a map.1 Yet the maps we draw are never reflections of the world as it is, but always partial

representations of it—representations powerfully shaped by who we are, where and when we are, and

what motivates our interests in that place.2 Maps of Japan appropriate to tourist sojourning, to seismic

charting, to military conquest, or to developmentalist economics would differ radically.3 In this article I

look at several maps of the Pacific, generated in different places and times and for different purposes.

But let me start with two maps that derive from the late eighteenth century. The first is the map of

Tupaia, a man from Ra‘iatea, priest of the ‘Oro religion, member of the arioi cult, and adviser to the

chiefs of Tahiti.4 (See figure 1). Tupaia joined the Endeavour when Captain Cook left Tahiti in the Society

Islands in July 1769. Cook thought him immensely intelligent and knowledgeable both about the

geography of the islands and the varied customs of its peoples. Joseph Banks sought his assistance as an

interpreter

and desired to take him back to England as a “curiosity.” Unlike Omai (see Hetherington 2001; Jolly nd

b), Tupaia never made it to England; he died en route, in Batavia in December 1770. But some of his

extensive knowledge of his island world was passed on as a map. The original drawing was lost, but

several copies were made, including the version published in Johann Reinhold Forster’s magnum opus,

Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World (Forster 1778; 1996, 304–305). Forster and his

son Georg were the naturalists on the second of Cook’s voyages—voyages that generated another

cartography of the Pacific, as reflected in a map of the tracks of the sailing ships on Cook’s three

voyages. (See figure 2). I juxtapose these two maps to ponder the relationship between indigenous and

foreign representations of Oceania and to situate such representations in the changing histories of

relations between Pacific peoples and strangers, between Islanders and those who are called (tongue-in-

cheek, in an important volume *Borofsky 2000+), “Outlanders.” Indigenous and foreign representations

of the place and its peoples are now not so much separate visions as they are “double visions,” in the

sense of both stereoscopy and blurred edges. Foreign knowledges of the Pacific have both used and

aspired to eclipse indigenous knowledges, as is obvious from the earliest forms of ethnology in the

region.5 Indigenous visions have, since the late eighteenth century, been challenged and partially

transformed through encounters with the imagined cartographies of travelers, missionaries, traders,

planters, and other agents of colonialism, capitalism, and development. As Tongan scholar Epeli Hau‘ofa

has suggested (1994), outsiders’ representations of the Pacific matter not just because of their

geopolitical and discursive hegemony but because Islanders have, in part, come to see themselves

through the Outlanders’ lenses. But how far and how do constructs of place and people that emanate

from “beyond the horizon” displace local visions? Tupaia’s map is a good example. Though he is the

author, this map is not his indigenous view. We will never know the details of that view, but his vision

was likely a rather differently “situated knowledge.”6 I suspect it located the observer not soaring high

above the islands, powerfully riding on the confident coordinates of longitude and latitude, plotting a

changing global position relative to east and west, north and south, but rather lying low in a canoe,

looking up at the heavens, scanning the horizon for signs of land, and navigating the powerful seas with

the embodied visual, aural, olfactory, and kinesthetic knowledge passed down through generations of

Pacific navigators. His knowledge would have been communicated to other Tahitians through

genealogical stories and chants, through the materials of the canoe and the sails, and through the

embodied practice of navigation (see Finney 1992; Finney and others 1994; and the film Sacred Vessels

[Diaz 1997]).7 Such full-bodied knowledge is here etiolated and converted through the agency of a quill

and a piece of parchment into a map. Moreover, the Tahitian names and dispositions of islands are not

just written down and graphed as a map, but situated in and saturated by the discursive frame of

“discovery” of Enlightenment voyaging.8

Counter mapping projects fail to address indigenous needs

Johnson Professor of geography at the University of Kansas, Louis affiliate Researcher

Institute of Policy and Social Research University of Kansas and Promanono

department of Geography at University Hawai‘i at Mānoa, ‘6

(Jay, T, Renee Pualani, Albertus Hadi, Facing the Future: Encouraging Critical Cartographic Literacies, In

Indigenous Communities, 2006, P. 87-88, Accessed 7/1/14, ESB)

Many, if not most “counter-mapping” projects, are projects designed to dramatically increase the power

of people living in a mapped area to control the representations of themselves and to increase their

control ofresources (Peluso, 1995: 387), and in addition assume that abasiclevel of Western cartographic

knowledge is sufficient for Indigenous communities to engage with this techno- science. Many, if not

most “counter-mapping” projects leave cartographic literacy to the imported ‘expert’ who attempts to

translate Indigenous place biographies onto the Western map that underlies their project.

Unfortunately, as Rundstrom observes, “*the+ prevailing Cartesian- Newtonian... epistemology does not

prize key characteristics of indigenous thinking, including; the principle of the ubiquity of relatedness;

non-anthropocentricity; a cyclical concept of time; a more synthetic than analytic view of the

construction of geographical knowledge; non-binary thinking; the idea that facts cannot be

dissociated from values; that precise ambiguity exists and can be advantageous; an emphasis on oral

performance and other non-inscriptive means of representation; and the presence of morality in all

actions” (1998: 7-8). Counter-mapping projects face the task of translating community information

based within these key characteristics of Indigenous thinking and when this task is left to the

uninitiated outside expert, much is lost in that translation. One issue in Indigenous mapping projects

which effectively demonstrates this loss of information in translation is the pervasive difficulty with fixed

boundaries (Brody, 1982; Chapin, 1998; Chap in et al., 2001; Fox, 1998; Kosek, 1998; Peluso, 1995;

Rundstrom, 1998). While Indigenous communities generally recognize fluid and flexible boundaries

over land and resource use, once these boundaries become fixed with in a Western cartographic

representation, the fluid and flexible nature of Indigenous thinking is lost (ox, 1998: 3). Based on several

case studies from Southeast Asia, Fox et al. (2005) have noted that within Indigenous counter-mapping

projects these newly fixed boundaries serve to shift the social relations both within and between

communities, unfortunately encouraging the development of a notion of private property where one

did not previously exist. One attempt to translate Indigenous understandings of boundaries onto

Western maps is in drawing a distinction between use and occupancy observing that use maps generate

artificial overlap (Tobias, 2000). This is one technique which can force Indigenous know ledge to fit

within the fixed boundaries of the Western map and can provide valuable representations in legal

proceedings but in the end, it is a technique which further perpetuates the loss of Indigenous

geographic knowledge. Another failure of translation can be seen in the loss of place names and their

associated role in creating and re/creating local knowledge. As Louis has observed, “*i+n Hawaiian

cartography place names are mnemonic symbols [which when] performed in daily rituals are a conscious

act of reimplacing genealogical connections, re-creating cultural landscapes, and re- generating cultural

mores” (2004: 4). With the introduction of Western cartography, Hawaiian place names, and the

essential role they have played in ‘recreating cultural landscapes’ become the (un)intentional victims

of cartographic translation. In both examples the underlying problem is the difference of worldviews

and practices in which Western and Indigenous cartographies evolve. creating cultural landscapes’

become the (un)intentional victims of cartographic translation. In both examples the underlying

problem is the difference of worldviews and practices in which Western and Indigenous cartographies

evolve

AT: Perm

Indigenous use of Western based mapping reinstates colonialism—only a historical

investigation of mapping solves

Johnson, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Department of Anthropology and

Geography, et al, 6

[Jay T., Renee Pualani Louis, Department of Geography, Univeristy of Hawai’I at Mānoa,

Albertus Hadi Pramono, Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa,

“Facing the Future: Encouraging Critical Cartographic Literacies In Indigenous

Communities”, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Volume 4,

Number 1, pg 81-82 PAC]

As Indigenous academics engaged with mapping initiatives and working as cartographers within

various Indigenous identified communities across North America, Indonesia and the Pacific, we have

become concerned about the ways in which these communities, and other Indigenous communities

around the world, are engaging with Western cartographic technologies. The mapping techniques and

GIS software being used by Indigenous communities around the world to establish land claims, map

culturally important sites and protect community resources, has a long and distinct history; a genealogy

intrinsically intertwined within Western knowledge systems (see Harley and Woodward, 1987; Harley,

1988; Peluso, 1995). What we are labeling here as ‘Western cartography’ is not only founded within a

Cartesian-Newtonian epistemology but is also connected with and has been informed/transformed

within both historical and current ‘contact zones’(Pratt, 1992) of the colonial projects of the West. To

engage the technologies of Western cartography is to involve our communities and their knowledge

systems with a science implicated in the European colonial endeavor (Harley, 1992b) and is a decision

which should be made only after examining not only our past experiences of colonial

mapping/surveying but also the long history of Western cartographic traditions.

While we caution Indigenous communities about how they engage with Western cartography, we also

recognize the value these technologies have brought to the struggles of our communities. One cannot

deny the value of works such as the Nunavut Atlas (1992) or the mapping efforts of the Wet’suwet’sen

and Gitxsan (Sparke, 1998) in establishing Indigenous connections to lands, resources and cultural sites.

Our aim in this paper is to encourage the development of a critical literacy, concerning how

Indigenous peoples engage with and employ modern cartography and GIS, and how in this process we

safeguard and encourage a literate continuation of our own Indigenous cartographic traditions.

Our paper is inspired by the Hawaiian concept of ‘facing future’, a concept based within an

epistemology born in the navigational exploits of the colonizers of the Pacific. The concepts of ‘past’

and ‘future’ are explained by Hawaiians using bodily directions, the front of the body faces the ‘past’

while the back faces ‘future’. Hawaiians ‘face’ their ‘future’ with their backs because the future is an

unknown. On the other hand, ‘past’ is knowable; it can be ‘seen’ in front of each of us, shaping our

character and consciousness. Hawaiians believe that knowing who they are, genealogically, and

where they came from, geographically and metaphysically, makes them capable of making more

informed decisions about the direction to move in the future. By allowing this concept to guide our

work we are focusing our attention first on Western cartography’s history, including its role in creating

and perpetuating European colonialism (Harley, 1992b: 532) and second on the history of Indigenous

cartographies.

Object Oriented Ontology

Link: Critical Cartography

The 1AC’s obsession with the way humans force their ideologies onto maps treats the

map itself as a blank slate waiting for human intervention. This locks in an

anthropocentric frame of thought that ignores the importance of non-humans

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2012

*Levi, September, “The Gravity of Things: An Introduction To Onto-Cartography,”

http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bryantontocartographies.pdf, accessed: 7/1/14, JO]

I begin with Einstein’s general theory of relativity and theory of gravity because it provides us with a

helpful analogy for understanding the basic theoretical claims of onto-cartography. Onto-cartography

is both a theory of the space-time of objects as they interact and a method for mapping these

interactions. To be sure, “gravity”, as I am using the term here is a metaphor—or, more optimistically, a

philosophical concept in Deleuze’s sense of the word – chosen to draw attention to how things and signs

structure spatio-temporal relations or paths along which entities move and become. In terms more

familiar within currently existing theory, we could refer to “gravity” as “force” or “power”. If, however, I

have chosen to speak of gravity rather than power, then this is because the concept of power within

the world of philosophy and theory has come to be too anthropocentric, immediately drawing

attention to sovereigns exercising power, class power, symbolic power, and things such as micro-

power and biopower. While I have no wish to abandon forms of analysis such as those found in Marx,

Foucault, and Bourdieu, the manner in which these anthropological connotations have become

sedimented within the institutions that house the humanities, both at the level of training and

scholarship— itself a form of gravity –have rendered it difficult to imagine nonhuman things exercising

power as anything more than blank screens upon which humans project their intentions and

meanings. As Stacy Alaimo has written, “*m]atter, the vast stuff of the world and of ourselves, has

been subdivided into manageable ‘bits’ or flattened into a ‘blank slate’ for human inscription.”4 By

far, the dominant tendency of contemporary critical theory or social and political theory is to see

nonhuman entities as but blank slates upon which humans project meanings. Things are reduced to

mere carriers or vehicles of human power and meaning, without any serious attention devoted to the

differences that nonhumans contribute to social assemblages. While I have no desire to abandon more

traditional semiotically driven forms of critical analysis insofar as I believe they have made tremendous

contributions to our understanding of why our social worlds are organized as they are, it is my hope that

the term “gravity” will be foreign enough to break old, familiar habits of thought, to overcome a certain

blindness at the heart of much contemporary theory, providing us with a far richer understanding of

why social relations take the form they take, thereby expanding the possibilities of our political

interventions.

Impact: Environment

Failure to recognize humans within a broader material system ensures the total

destruction of the environment - turns the aff

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2014

[Levi, “Onto-cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media”, page 4, JO]

On the other hand, the shift from materialism to the discursivism of variants of historical materialism

rendered it impossible to address one of the central political issues of our time: climate change.

Thinking climate change requires thinking ecologically and thinking ecologically requires us to think

how we are both embedded in a broader natural world and how non-human things have power and

efficacy of their own. However, because we had either implicitly or explicitly chosen to reduce things

to vehicles for human discursivity, it became impossible to theorize something like climate change

because we only had culture as a category to work with. Having brought about the dissipation of the

material in the fog of binary oppositions introduced by signs, there was no longer a place for thinking

the real physical efficacy of fossil fuels, pollutants, automobiles, sunlight interacting with the albedo

of the earth, and so on. Even among the ecotheorists in the humanities we find a preference for

discussing portrayals of the environment in literature and film, rather than the role that bees play in

agriculture and the system of relations upon which they depend.

Alt: Onto-Cartography

Alt: Onto-Cartography

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2012

[Levi, September, “The Gravity of Things: An Introduction To Onto-Cartography,”

http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bryantontocartographies.pdf, accessed: 7/1/14, JO]

The "onto" of "onto-cartography" refers to the word "ontic", from the Greek ovro;, denoting materially

existing entities, substances, or objects. "Cartography", of course, is the practice of constructing or

drawing maps. An onto-cartography would thus be a map or diagram of things—and more precisely

things and signs—that exist within a field, situation, or world. By "situation" or "world" I mean an

ordered set of entities and signs that interact with one another. A world or situation is not something

other than the externally related entities and signs within it, but is identical to these entities and signs.

Onto-cartography is thus not a map of space or geography—though we can refer to a "space of things

and signs" in a given situation or field and it does help to underline the profound relevance of geography

to this project insofar as onto- cartographies are always geographically situated –but is rather a map of

things or what I call machines. In particular, an onto-cartography is a map of the spatio-temporal

gravitational fields produced by things and signs and how these fields constrain and afford

possibilities of movement and becoming.

But towards what end? When we do an onto-cartography are we merely making a list of things and

signs that exist? A list is an inventory of entities that exist within a situation, but is not yet a map or

cartography. Rather, in order for something to count as a cartography, it must show how things are

distributed and related to one another rather than merely enumerating or listing them. In particular, a

central thesis of onto-cartography is that space-time arises from things and signs. Onto-cartography is

thus the practice of mapping the spatio-temporal paths, the gravitational fields, that arise from

interactions among things. Central to this project is the recognition that things and signs produce

gravity that influence the movement and becoming of other entities. This gravity is not, of course, the

gravity of the physicist—though it would include that sort of gravity as well—but is a far broader type

gravity that influences the movements and becomings of all entities. With Einstein, onto-cartography

argues that the gravity of things and signs produce spatio-temporal paths along which entities are

both afforded certain possibilities of movement and becoming and where their possibilities of

movement and becoming are constrained. Further, with Einstein, onto-cartography rejects the notion

that there is one space-time that contains all entities, instead arguing that there are a variety of space-

times arising from the gravity exercised by entities in a milieu or situation.

Prior question

The K is a prior question. Their affirmative can be entirely correct, but a lack of

understanding material properties leads them to just reproduce the social relations

they criticize

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2012

*Levi, September, “The Gravity of Things: An Introduction To Onto-Cartography,”

http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bryantontocartographies.pdf, accessed: 7/1/14, JO]

Attentiveness to signifying entities always raises questions about just who ideological interventions

are for. While I don’t share a number of his meta-theoretical claims, I think many of Žižek’s ideological

critiques are on target. Aping Žižek’s style, the question to ask, however, is that of precisely who these

critiques are for. We would imagine that Žižek’s critiques are directed at those who labor under these

ideologies. After all, it wouldn’t make much sense to critique an ideology if it wasn’t directed at

changing those who labor under that ideology. Yet when we reflect on Žižek’s critiques, we notice that

they require a high degree of theoretical background to be understood, requiring acquaintance with

Lacan, Hegel, and a host of other theorists. Every entity requires a sort of “program” to receive and

decipher messages of a particular sort from another entity. Reading Žižek’s work requires a particular

sort of training if the recipient is to decipher it. When we evaluate Žižek’s work by this criteria and

critique him immanently—clearly he endorses the Marxist project of not simply representing the world

but of changing it –we can ask, on material grounds, about the adequacy of his project. Such a critique

is not a critique of the accuracy of his critiques, but rather of the adequacy of his practice. It is a

question that only comes into relief when we evaluate the material properties of texts, the entities to

which they’re addressed, and the adequacy of how these texts are composed. When judged by these

criteria, we might conclude that such critiques are not addressed at those laboring under such

ideologies at all, but rather at others that possess the requisite programs to decipher these sendings.

We might thereby conclude that such a practice is actually a mechanism that reproduces these sorts of

social relations rather than transforming them as it leaves the ideology itself untouched while

simultaneously giving the ideological critic the impression that he’s intervening in some way. Note,

this critique has nothing to do with the accuracy and truth of these critiques—in many instances,

they’re quite true –but with how they materially function. Such an analysis would then not dismiss

these ideological critiques, but would instead ask what additional operations must be engaged in to

insure that the critiques reach their proper destination and produce effects within those networks.

AT- Perm

The perm fails. The alt requires the suspension of all other modes of thought, or else

risks footnoting the importance of material distribution

Bryant, Collin College Philosophy Professor, 2012

*Levi, September, “The Gravity of Things: An Introduction To Onto-Cartography,”

http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bryantontocartographies.pdf, accessed: 7/1/14, JO]

This might appear to be a minor, obvious point, but I believe it has tremendous implications. What we

need is a sort of inverted transcendental ἐποχή *epoch], that for the moment suspends any focus on

the sense of signifying entities, instead attending solely to their material or embodied being. This

would entail that like the distribution of a virus or microbe in a particular environment, signs also

have an epidemiological distribution in the world, a geography of where they are located in the world.

Because every text requires a material embodiment in order to travel throughout the world, they will be

located in particular times and places. To see why this important take projects such as critiques of

ideology. Critiques of ideology tend to focus on the incorporeal dimension of cultural artifacts and

practices— their meaning or sense — ignoring the material distribution of ideologies. While I do not

doubt the veracity of many of these critiques, the problem is that in focusing on the incorporeal

dimension of ideological texts, their sense or meaning, these critiques behave as if these ideologies

exist everywhere. Yet different places have different ideologies because ideologies, like anything else,

are spatio- temporally situated entities. Just as we wouldn't want to spray a pesticide for West Nile

Virus in an area where West Nile Virus doesn't exist, it is a waste of time and effort to critique an

ideology when it doesn't exist in this particular place. We need means of identifying where the

signifying constellations are and of discerning ways of intervening in those particular signifying

constellations.

Capitalism

Cap Link – Identity Politics

[Cap link to identity politics]

Rectenwald, NYU Liberal Studies Professor, 2013

Michael, 12-2-13, The North Star, “What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)? A

Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics),”

http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11411, 7-1-14, KMM]

Identity politics and its variants developed during a moment when the Marxist critique of capitalism

had lost a degree of credibility due to the fiascos of the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere. Labor

movements had given way to the New Left movements that attracted students and others toward

liberal variants of political activism. Housed in the academy, theory became abstracted from social

relations and the social totality. In a field of free play, divorced from working class politics, it focused on

various kinds of putative determinations, including those of language, rationality, identity, “power”

(vaguely conceived), and other “prison houses,” as Frederic Jameson referred to the categories of

poststructuralist containment. Identity politics marked the limits of postmodern political engagement.

But, identity politics has not since “been absorbed into capital,” as suggested in the quote above. As

forms of alienated labor, capitalist relations have always determined them. They have been the

products of capitalism from the outset. By treating such categories as ends in themselves, therefore, a

politics based on identities necessarily leads down the blind alley of reification. That is, such politics,

even when “successful,” necessarily ends at the limits of identity itself. The problem is, while

theoretically, we might all wake up tomorrow to changed identities, or to changed conditions for our

identities, we would still be exploited under capitalism. Running the circuits of capital from

production through consumption, identity can only lead us back to the office, the factory, or the

streets, allowing at best our coalescence around particular consumer cultures.

CounterPlans

CP – Individual Counter Mapping/PIC USfg

Maps are the crux of a movement towards a more people centered epistemology. Our

movement is key to seize power from oppressive technocratic structures

Crampton, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky, 10

[Jeremy W, Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, page 25-26, PAC]

The crux of the challenge that these recent developments pose lies in the way that cartography has

long been practiced. For most of its history mapping has been the practice of powerful elites – the so-

called “sovereign map” (Jacob 2006). The sovereign¶ map for Jacob refers to the fact that the map was a

dominant political force; one which held sway as a way of knowing the world (even as we look back on

them¶ now and see just how inaccurate they were). Maps held power; they were sovereign. But maps

were sovereign also in the sense that it was literally only sovereigns and those in power who made

and used maps. Maps were elitist and were mademfor elites. Nation states, governments, the

wealthy, and the powerful all dominated¶ the production of maps (Buisseret 1992). For example

Buisseret tells the story of¶ a Lucayan Indian who was brought back to Spain by Christopher Columbus

and¶ presented to King Ferdinand. The Indian was able to lay out on the table a rough¶ map of the

Caribbean using stones as markers, and it seems likely that Columbus¶ and his crew benefited from this

indigenous knowledge in making their maps for¶ the royal court (Buisseret 2003).¶ Map sovereignty is

now being challenged by the emergence of a new populist cartography in which the public is gaining

(some) access to the means of production of maps. This is certainly not an isolated development. It is

part of a larger movement of counter-knowledges that are occurring in the face of ever-increasing

corporatization of information such as the consolidation of the news media into the¶ hands of a few

global multinationals and their dominance by fairly narrow interests.¶ The internet and web, blogs, and

the netroots (online political activism) are all¶ reasons for this “people-powered” control of information

(Armstrong and Zúniga¶ 2006). In this chapter I focus on some of the exciting new developments that

can¶ help create, visualize, and disseminate geographical information. And yet at the same¶ time many of

these developments are in the hands of quasi-monopolistic media companies¶ (Google, Yahoo,

Microsoft). We’ll ask what it means for traditional expert driven GIS and mapping if “map amateurs are

reshaping the world of mapmaking.” Is there a tension between this and traditional GIS? What do these

tools offer – only visualization and sharing or analysis as well? And if so, will they transform or even

replace GIS as we know it? In sum: is there a new politics of knowledge?