FAULT - Maphead - page 34

“How is that different from ecology or environmental science?”
“Well,itencompassesthem.Aspectsofthem.Butwealsostudythesocialandeconomic
and cultural and geopolitical sides of—”
“Sociology, economics, cultural studies, poli sci.”
“Some geographers specialize in different world regions.”
“Ah, right, we have Asian and African and Latin American studies programs here. But I
didn't know they were part of the geography department.”
“They're not.”
(Long pause.)
“So, uh, what is it you do study, then?”
And . . . scene.
It'smisleading tothinkofgeographyasasinglediscipline atall.Insteadit'stheultimate
interdisciplinary study, because it's made up of every other discipline viewed spatially,
through the lens of place. Language, history, biology, public health, paleontology, urb-
an planning—there are geographers studying all these subjects and aspects of geography
taught in all of them. In one sense, geography's ubiquity is an argument for its importance,
but it's also the very thing that makes it so hard to define to administrators and so easy for
universities to defund and divvy up into other departments.
In fact, the little one-act play above is probably too optimistic. The real cocktail party
conversation would probably go something like this:
“Actually, I have a degree in geography.”
“Geography? Wow, I'm terrible with maps. I bet you know all your state capitals,
though!”
(Geographer's smile freezes, left eye starts to twitch uncontrollably.)
Maps,see,areahugepartofgeography'songoingidentitycrisistoday.Aslateastheend
of the eighteenth century, geography and cartography were synonymous—interchangeable
words for the same science. The world was still being charted and explored, and geograph-
ers were the ones drawing the maps. But then geography began to grow into a holistic
scholarlydiscipline,andafunnythinghappenedonthewaytothesymposium:itlostmaps
as its center.
This happened for many reasons. Most obviously, the world got pretty thoroughly
mapped; making maps wasn't at the brave frontier of anything anymore. As a result, geo-
graphersbegantoseecartographers asmeretechnicians, notscientists orscholars.Second,
oncedigitaltoolslikegeographicinformationsystems,orGIS,begantobeusedtomanage
spatial data, focusing on maps felt old-fashioned. Finally, there's been an academic trend
toward emphasizing the unreliability of maps: their cultural baggage, their selectivity, the
agendasthatdrivethem.“ Allmapsdistortreality ”isthemoralofMarkMonmonier's1991
classic How to Lie with Maps. They're artifacts to be deconstructed, like literary texts. It's
not fashionable to see them as the authoritative bedrock of a science anymore.