Oct 11

Prior to my reading of Harley’s “Deconstructing the Map,” I had never put much thought into the breadth of detail to which a map can cover. The only maps I have ever used are ones for displaying basic geographic information or for navigation, never considering the art of cartography or the different ways information can be displayed in maps. What resonated with me was Harley’s analysis of the transition in material mapped in a given location as time progresses. It is also interesting to think about how the technology of map making has changed, and the accuracy of them accordingly as well. This is important to connect with the task of mapping different aspects of Allen Island in an accurate and coherent manner, while understanding the purpose of the map. Through reading this article, I have realized that maps can provide so much more than just geographic relevance. As Harley mentions, analyzing maps can provide a way to make other information easier to understand and add significance. I hope to be accomplish this by providing maps in my projects about Allen Island.

Harley’s ability to distinguish cultural interpretations of cartographers is a remarkable insight into not only understanding maps, but also reading between the lines in other forms of art. Very elemental paintings and photographs can be interpreted through the concept of neutrality. With abstract art, images are intended to evoke certain feelings or thoughts in the viewer, but with less explicit rhetoric, reading between the lines can be much more challenging.

With the map of the coastline, the land is muted with its plainness. Contrastingly, the water and the shoreline is precise and detailed. The inlets, the rivers, and the islands are all labeled and comprehensive. The map of Camden is political in its variable font sizes and descriptions. It details a town bustling with commerce. Contrary to the coastal map, it makes the coastline and harbor appear plain and unimportant. These differentiations can be interpreted as local identities, the mid coast map is functional–it provides critical knowledge for the working man. It brings out this hidden blue collar identity. The Camden map evokes leisure and retail success. The function is essential for Camden’s municipal workers, but implies the space’s identity of small business and wealth.

Each map appears scientific or purposeful on the surface, but cartographers have created these underlying appeals to their own map design. In this sense, they form this “hidden aspect of their discourse” that can be seen across forms of art (Harley 4). The distortions they create provide a framework for culture within space.

Reading J.B. Harley’s “Deconstructing the Map,” my first thought was back to our first Conkling reading “Intro.” Conkling says that there are over three thousand islands off of Mid-Coast Maine, but that the exact number was unsure. Today, with satellite imaging, it would be assumed that there is a completely accurate count of the islands, but this depends on what is “accurate.” Could a local lobsterman give a more accurate description of the islands than an image could? He would have an understanding of the tides and the ins and outs of the islands, which is far outside the reach of an accurate satellite image.

This highlights the subjective effects of cartography that Harvey talks about. Cartography is rarely considered a form of art in today’s world but why? Does Google maps make a map like the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Camden insignificant? Harvey says, “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.'” It is important to consider the history of cartography to fully appreciate it as an art form. A map is more that just a picture of an area. It tells the story of the area; who lived there in the past and who lives there now, how these people have shaped the land both deliberately and unintentionally, and how it connects and works with the places around it.

 

By Harley’s account, our dialogue of historic cartography has long engendered oppressive narratives of non-European peoples and their relationships with space. “European map-makers and map users have increasingly promoted a standard scientific model of knowledge and cognition,” writes Harvey, who continues to note that “this mimetic bondage has led to a tendency…to regard the maps of other non-Western or early cultures (where the rules of mapmaking were different) as inferior to European maps” (Harley 4). Here, Harley illustrates a fundamental difference in the way European explorers of the 17th century onward and their cross cultural contemporaries sought to understand their space. Maps can be defined by any number of parameters: coordinates, landmarks, topography, utility, etc. For me, this raised questions of whether there are gaps in how we understand the our homes and how outsiders understand them, and what those gaps are. Even on top of this, how do we define “home”? Is it our house? Our town? Colby, or a family tree? Can a map communicate the fluid complexities of these concepts over time–or, in other words, can we map spacetime?

 

Harley talked a lot about the cartography in the past and how science had been improving the accuracy but decreasing the ‘human influence’ in the making of maps. He also mentioned the Official State High Way Map of North Carolina, which is illustrated with drawings, photos, and various colors. Such a contrast makes me think about our timeline project: should we present the history that narrates what exactly happened to the lobstermen, lobsters, or Mid-coast Maine, or should we tell these stories with our emotions and interpretations in them? For maps, the scientific accuracy and the personal opinions seem to be incompatible, since the geography features are ‘objects’. Though they can be changed through time, the changes can hardly be different in people’s eyes. However, people may see histories in quite different ways. The evolution of lobster fishing is just texts and photos for us, but for those lobstermen, such progress is closely related to their livelihood. And artists who recorded the evolving progress are close observers even if all those development was tangential to their lives. I believe that what we shoudl do is neither simply retelling the recorded history through the timeline nor mixing all our own understandings with the facts. What we need to do is to collect information from different perspectives, and present all the facts, anecdotes and emotions. We are not doing science, we are summarizing different stories from different groups of people into a ‘history’.

In class we have been discussing the concept of spacetime in great detail. However, relative space-time has put on the back burner slightly. In terms of cartography, the relative view of space-time provides an interesting lens when looking at a map. In Deconstructing the Map, Harley describes cartography as both a science and an art. (Harley 2). His argument states that we should shift the way we think about the nature of cartography. I believe that Harley would interpret Harvey’s view of space-time as a successful epistemological shift. Harvey states, “each map projection tells its relative truth.” (Harvey 13). This ‘relative truth’ is what Harley wants others to recognize in maps. The implicit message that is expressed in maps is only relative and is extremely subjective.

For example, the map of Mohegan is less of a ‘traditional’ map (in that directions can not really be ascertained from its depiction) but more of a landscape. It tells more of a story instead of giving instruction or direction. It also depicts Mohegan at a specific time, 1896 to be exact, and in its illustration it shows a small village and boats in the harbor–but this map is from a specific point of view. Another person viewing Mohegan on the same day may see something else, depending on their point of view. The identity of Mohegan at that point in time and space is completely relative. Harley asks the question “where is the history of landscape and where is the space-time of human existence” on a map. (Harley 13). But I believe that these are not questions that can be answered in a map. While it is true that a map is a piece of science and art, that expresses “an embedded social vision,” that social vision is that of the cartographer. (Harley 13) The bias and experience of a single person are expressed in that social vision, and therefore the “space-time of human existence’ can not be shown in a piece of paper. When looking at a map through the lens of space-time, one is simply acknowledging how the map is expressing a relative identity of place but not a concrete identity.