-------- Original Message --------
Subject: counter-maps and map collections/libraries
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:50:00 +0000
From: Brendan Whyte <[log in to unmask]>
To: mapsL <[log in to unmask]>, <[log in to unmask]>
> fundamentally questions the assumptions or biases of cartographic
> conventions, that challenges predominant power effects or mapping, or
> that engages in mapping in ways that upset power relations”
This could be interpreteed to mean alternative projections, such as the
Peters Projection championed by the New Internationalist.
You could also consider upside down world maps, such as the Wizard
Projection espoused by the Wizard of Christchurch
and Mcarthurs universal Corrective map of the World (now produced
commercially), and Buckminster-Fullers Dymaxion airocean world
icosahedronic projection. Then there's the issue of the assimilation of
these radical cartographic projections by mainline commercial companies
(evil capitalism): Hema in Australia sell an upside down world map (up
to its 8th edition!), and several national mapping agencies (OS & LINZ?)
have produced upside down maps of their own countries for use by women
navigating in a car while their husbands drive.
Much indigenous mapping (asking Aborigines to draw a map of the places
in their songlines, their dreaming, or just to note down waterholes and
local names and features of import to them). See for example individual
hand-drawn items in the Daisy Bates collection of maps
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1030147
(Bates was an anthropologist working with Aborigines in western
Australia).
Library of Congress G-schedule cataloguing places map projections at .B72
so world maps on weird projections: G3201.B72
USA on weird projecitonS: G3701.B72 etc.
Any mainline map colelction classifies its maps on a geogrpahical basis
and then on a subject basis, so countermap of a particular
planet.reigon/country/city would be housed with the other 'normal' maps
covering that geography. Depending on what they show, and how they show
it they will fit neatly into one of the subjct cutters within the
geographic classification
(e.g. world upside down maps mentioned above).
Dr Brendan Whyte
Assistant Map Curator
Map Section
National Library of Australia
Parkes
ACT 2600
AUSTRALIA
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: counter-maps and map collections/libraries
> Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:34:15 -0400
> From: Peter Rogers <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> Greetings:
>
> I am a MLS student at the University of Buffalo who has a background
> in Environmental Studies and GIS teaching and research. One of my
> interests is the topic of “counter-maps.” The term, counter-map,
> dates from a 1995 article on forest resources in Indonesia by Nancy
> Peluso. Harris and Hazen (2006) define counter-mapping as “efforts
> to contest or undermine power relations and asymmetries in relation to
> cartographic products and processes [and] any effort that
> fundamentally questions the assumptions or biases of cartographic
> conventions, that challenges predominant power effects or mapping, or
> that engages in mapping in ways that upset power relations” (p. 115).
> There is an extensive discussion of the concept in Wood (2010). Some
> of the approaches related to and overlapping with counter-mapping are
> participatory mapping, community mapping, ethnocartography,
> self-demarcation, and protest mapping (Chapin et al, 2005). An early
> and important example discussed by Wood is the Inuit Land Use and
> Occupancy Project of the late 1960s and 1970s.
>
> As part of my MLS studies, I am exploring how such counter-maps might
> fit into more conventional map libraries and collections. I have a
> couple of questions that I would like to put to the Maps-L community.
>
> 1) Is anyone aware of any map collections/libraries which include such
> counter-maps and/or have a counter-map section? I have so far been
> unable to find one.
> 2) Should counter-maps be included as part of map
> collections/libraries? If so, should they be integrated directly into
> the main collection or should they have a separate section?
> 3) Should map collections/libraries provide tools and resources to
> enable counter-mapping? This would include books, articles, links to
> groups such as http://www.ppgis.net/, and freeware mapping software.
>
> Thanks for your consideration of my questions,
>
> Peter Rogers
>
> References
>
> Harris, Leila and Helen Hazen. (2006). Power of Maps: (Counter)
> Mapping for Conservation. ACME 4(1):99-130.
>
> Peluso, Nancy. (1995). Whose woods are these? Counter-mapping forest
> territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode 27(4): 383-406.
>
> Wood, Denis. (2010). Rethinking the Power of Maps. Guilford Press.
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