Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
asked to nominate the edges of their neighbourhood and the
thicker lines, such as the railway line to the south, show greater
consensus. The black circles identify specifi c named locations.
Similarly, people chart out routes to school or local shops
that avoid areas perceived as being unsafe. Such maps can be
portrayed graphically by those who possess this traditional area
of skill
.
In many ways, the use of mental maps and images gave a thread of
continuity to mapping at a time when many human geographers
ceased to use maps and focused on their engagement with theory,
ideology, and political awareness. Others were prompted to review
their maps both in terms of their methods of construction and
meanings. They continued properly to celebrate maps and the
important roles that they played but were increasingly sensitive
to the dangers of their iniquities, to their tendencies to enforce
and encode, to the political economies in which they were
embedded, and their seductive qualities. Recently observers have
questioned the power of maps as not merely representing places
but as creating them. In this view maps precede the real and their
creative capacity has to be recognized. Thus, the signifi cance of
what maps leave out or conceal may be as important as what
they include. For example, the world map fi rst constructed in the
1830s that placed Britain centrally along the Greenwich meridian,
coloured red all British colonies, and left all other land a uniform
beige was a means of portraying the British Empire in all its
superiority. Details and diversities were blanked out and the iconic
map was designed for imperial administrators, colonial lobbyists,
and settler publics.
Another dimension of the importance of maps to geography is
their continued relevance in the information age, especially in
relation to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Maps are an
explicit expression of the concept of geographical space and can
be seen as a specifi cally geographical contribution to the range of
methods available for understanding the world.
