Theory in Practice

An Obituary for Brian Harley

By Jeremy Crampton, University of Portsmouth.

Original draft, March 24, 1992. NB: the published version (Cartographic Perspectives #12, spring 1992, pp. 3-4) was edited by CP editor David DiBiase and differs slightly from this draft. This version is offered for historical completeness only.

Lowly graduate students sometimes have a problem relating to faculty, especially when the faculty are at the prime of their lives, and going through a period of intense recognition in their field. But although during 1990-1991 Brian harley was more famous than ever, he never forgot the "little guy," as I can personally attest. His work on the history of cartography, of which he was series co-editor, was being gradually published to top-flight reviews; but most paradoxically at the same time he was appealing to a new generation of geographers and cartographers through a series of articles on such seemingly stunning topics as deconstruction, ideology, secrecy and (in perhaps his last piece published while still alive) an article on ethics for this journal [CP]. Indeed, his appeal to this younger generation was so complete that on several different occasions people were openly surprised when they met him to see that he was not in his twenties or thirties!

One of those surprised in this way was myself, but then he had a habit of surprising people. In my own case, and long before I ever met him, I had read an article co-written with David Woodward on the subject of cartography and history. Needing an example of a traditional viewpoint for an essay I was writing, I latched too enthusiastically on to this as a prime example of traditional cartography, and thus had my first lesson on uncritical and unreflective thinking from this eclectic and generous scholar. By October 1989, on my way up to Ann Arbor for the NACIS conference, I had discussed with my fellow passengers [including John Krygier] his famous paper on deconstructing the map (I recall a lunch break at some roadside "family restaurant" where we bandied terms like postmodernism and power relations between bites of scrambled egg and gulps of black coffee). The paper was more than another Harley surprise, it was a total revelation.

I will leave assessment of his academic side to others (eg., see Edney, 1992) but that lunch is actually emblematic of the true influence that Harley has had on the profession--because he brought what he was saying into everyday life and everyday cartography, and didn't just leave it up to in the realm of philosophy. To date, I have been most affected by his later writings, but you can see a theme of wresting control over cartography running back at least to the beginning of the last decade, where he said things that truly challenged the foundations upon which cartography thought it was safely resting--and so brought his theory into practice. He was the gentleman highway robber of cartography; challenging those who had complacency to spare, and giving to those who needed encouragement.

And he was a gentleman. Apart from some brief interaction via email (or "evil mail" as he called it) my first direct contact with him was when I called to ask him if he would be preapred to take part in a session I was organising (was it only last year?) at the AAG. Although already booked to give a paper and as a discussant (and rightly suspicious of "spreading yourself too thin" during the conference) he generously agreed to Chair the session. On the phone there and then, it was more than generous it was downright bouncy! "Helllooooo Jeremy!" he cried when I got through to him (characteristically, his letter had left a home number for me to call). At this point, he still didn't know me from Adam.

I actually met him only twice, during the AAG Miami conference, and just prior to that as Distinguished Visitor at the Pennsylvania State Geography Department, where he gave four presentations over the course of the week (including some of his work which later appeared as Maps and the Columbian Encounter). My notes say such things as "cartography has ridden on the coattails of science and technology," and that cartography has sought to civilize people through "the reason" of the map, or that the Enlightenment has "hijacked the history of cartography," but this is all mixed up with a party later where he perched on my sofa, beer in hand, and with a kind of boyish grin (as if he had just stolen a neighbor's apple and was rather pleased about it), while graduate students hovered around him, or romped in the snow, where at one point I nearly expired from laughing.

Sometimes he seemed to go too far. He had a real strong fervor when it came to challenging "establishment" views. No doubt this was partly intentional, and of a piece with his puckish delight in popping balloons of self-righteous hot air, but from time to time you got the feeling he did not always distinguish between the challenge and the insult. But to those of us who had adopted him as our intellectual father, myself included, this was merely icing on the cake. When you don't accept the hegemony of the scientific paradigm, why not be polemical from time to time? It was all part of the message, plain enough in his academic writings, and plain from his active work; theory and practice coming together.

But in the end it is his legacy that still exists, even if the man himself has been taken from us. I for one hope to try (as best I can, and not equipped) to honor that legacy in my writing and my teaching. Others too have more formally recognised his legacy, with a Royal Geographical Society Memorial being held in London in March 1992. It was sad, for obvious reasons, but in the end amazing (in the true sense of the world) to see the variety and number of people who had been touched by the power of the man. At this time of sadness, let us feel the force of that amazing man.