Brian Harley

Transcripts of lecture notes taken by Jeremy Crampton

Notes to first lecture "Cartography as the Enlightenment Project", delivered March 11, 1991

Direct quotes from Harley shown in inverted commas

3/11

What happens when we write cartography's history?

Today's theme--the new nature of maps [compare the 2001 collection].

It matters what kind of history we write. Some historical map cultures are so different we have had to enlarge the map concept [see Harley & Woodward History of Cartography Vol 1].

This raises the issue or dimension of cultural relativism--questioning the Western view.

[Today's talk in outline:]

1. Changes of mind about cartography
2. The cartographic enlightenment
3. Consequences and alternatives

1. Biography... [inspired by] Edward Said

Historical geography of documents in the English school and maps in particular

*A mirroring phase until 1980. A cartographic foundationalism. Map as mirror, objective, transparent, good maps even in bad maps winnow out topographic truth. Have a documentary status.

* 1960s-70s assessing accuracy. "Robinson mode" of cartography, ie., techniques for making good maps and assessing their goodness. Beginnings of bias in the cognitive aspects [ie., errors in map recall, distance judgements etc.]. But overall "few sleepness nights" in the cartographic community.

* Unmasking phase. "Adrenalin flowed between the lines of the map". Rhetoric, iconography, hermeneutic approaches.

The cultural tides are changing:

The Oxford History workshop--an eclectic approach "turning the canon on its head".

...[unmasking] of cartographic censorship

...[unmasking] of cartography's representational power. Yet we are "still looking for truths,...not deconstructing the map as deconstruction is textual and my work is contextual."

The aim is not to mystify, that would be too rejective of the success of cartography.

2. Cartography as the enlightenment project.

The authority of Euro/global cartography--"cartography has ridden on the coattails of science and technology"

Yet cartography was a unified science only by the mid 19th century [cf. Harley in Vol 1 on history of cartography].

There was a science of measurement, metaphor where "authenticity still central to cartography"

There was a mission to civilize through "the reason of the map". Mapping exists for its utility, eg., the ICA book

Enlightenment "hijacked" the history of cartography project. A "human mastery of the world"... GIS... teleological. History with a hidden agenda of disciplinary aspects.

Abuse of history by Joel Morrison [?].

Art/science dichotomy--myth of the great divide [cf. unpublished paper with this title]. Myth of the origin of cartography. Influences the way history of cartography is written, ie., as artistic, then scientific.

3. "Canon of acceptable maps". There is a scientific chauvinism by discriminating against maps of the past.

The Western tradition ignored non-enlightenment contributing maps

Chines maps for eaxmple are similar to western maps, so we talk about their mathematical aspects.

Arabic maps came from the Greek maps.

Alternatives to history of cartography:

--an awareness of older and more universal visual language cartographically. "Problems of cartography was developing in geography only had terrestial aspects"... now includes cosmological mapping eg., Indian.

--an enlarged understanding of map purposes. Eg., MIT book of Landsat. Wide ranging, political power, diplomatic, cartomancy, religion, mythical, symbolic--all neglected in favor of the scientific