The Map Precedes the Territory | Geography Directions
▻http://blog.geographydirections.com/2012/12/10/the-map-precedes-the-territory
▻http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/11/25/20121125-165501-pic-165156268_s800x873.jpg?28f034c9edebb7489c9bba92
Geographers and critical cartographers have long acknowledged that maps do not simply and unproblematically represent the territory depicted by their lines, symbols and shading. Rather, maps participate in the very construction of such territories in the first place. Historical studies have shown the production of maps to be central to the space-claiming activities of European colonial powers, and have highlighted how maps function as tools of political power and even oppression. The representational and world-constructing power of maps does not originate in their accuracy or precision, but in their positioning within webs of practices which at once reflect and produce the cultures and societies in which maps are situated.
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