Map Cultures, Misuses, and GI - A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts - page 219

ADVANCED ISSUES IN GI AND CARTOGRAPHY Map Cultures, Misuses, and GI

Chapter 11

Map Cultures, Misuses, and GI

How and what GI and maps represent are important questions related to cul-
tural issues and values; these representations give maps power. GI and maps
are not simple devices for communication, but complex symbolic vehicles
that play with past and present images, other symbols, and ideological and
material concerns. GI and maps can communicate in different ways and at
different levels to a number of people. While geographic representation and
cartographic representation offer a multitude of choices, many of these
choices follow conventions that may be implicit. Often conventions ref lect
particular cultural values, values that arise in a culture's ways of making
sense of the world. In other words, the power of GI and maps is intrinsic to a
culture's engagement with the world. GI and maps are not only a means of
understanding but a means of influencing what people know. Some people
might like to say that misuses of GI and maps are part of exchanges and con-
f licts between different cultures. All GI and maps operate and make use of
forms of geographic representation, types of cartographic representation,
assumptions, and conventions that we can bundle together as GI and map
cultures. Knowing the cultures of GI and maps helps develop a better sense
of how GI and maps inscribe meaning to geographies, how people manipu-
late GI and maps, and how the misuses of maps can lead to biases in how we
understand the world or parts of it.
The purpose of this chapter is the development of a pragmatic under-
standing of the culturally influenced problems inherent in geographic repre-
sentation and cartographic representation in Western civilization. These
include accuracy issues discussed in previous chapters. More importantly,
these problems touch on important questions of what and how GI and maps
represent. Above all, there looms the question of why GI and maps are cre-
ated. These activities are very costly for all people involved. Why people
choose to make GI maps and how and what they choose to include in their
geographic representations and cartographic representations are important

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