{"id":2244,"date":"2021-12-02T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/hargretthoursproject\/?p=2244"},"modified":"2021-12-06T19:14:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T23:14:23","slug":"what-do-maps-do-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/hargretthoursproject\/what-do-maps-do-really\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do Maps Do, Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the early 1980s, a group of sociologists at Mines ParisTech developed a new approach to their field. They sought, simply, to account for those pesky inanimate objects that sociology had long ignored. Actor-Network Theory<\/a> posited that \u201csocial ties\u201d between people were not a self-sufficient force in maintaining our social fabrics. As Bruno Latour, one of ANT\u2019s founders, explains, \u201csocial ties\u201d can only exist in real-world interactions between people\u2014people who are invariably using some kind of object\u2014clothes, telephones, maps <\/em>(Latour, pp. 64-65). \u201cGroups are made, agencies are explored, and objects play a role\u201d (Latour, 87). Objects have agency too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Close<\/a>
A folding roadmap (Credit: CC0 Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

ANT set the foundation for a veritable wave of socio-cartographic inquiry in the early aughts. In 2005, Barry Brown and Eric Laurier published one such study. They find that map consultation, in these situations, becomes a locus for the socialized organization of the entire trip. For example, the passenger with the map might say to the driver, \u201cWe could check out the Museum dedicated to the history of corn one block down, or we could<\/em> go to this cool old pub that\u2019s 30 minutes out of the way.\u201d Here, the map-holder is invoking a host of social dynamics far beyond describing spatial relations; she calls on preference, divisions of labor and the hierarchies therein, negotiations of the future. Or, at a red light, by saying \u201cKillin was\u2026\u201d and then pointing to a place on the map already passed, she combines bodily gesture with signification of map-object to fill in for speech while offering the driver a space to respond. This, the authors argue, is but one way that map consultation can be \u201cbound up with the ongoing maintenance of friendship,\u201d among a host of other social ties (Brown and Laurier, p. 27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown and Laurier\u2019s article gave me the framework to understand 43<\/em>\u2019s remediation of maps in a more complete way. I could see more clearly the social relationship between me, 43, <\/em>and Robin Price: map reader, map, and cartographer, respectively. My initial experience of performing<\/em> 43<\/em>\u2014the way it subverted my expectations and prompted me to seek out all of its nooks and crannies\u2014was a valid effect of this artists\u2019 book\u2019s innate materiality. The socialized relationship between artist and reader\u2014my faith in a deeper meaning to be uncovered\u2014was as much a part of how 43<\/em> functioned as the map forms printed on its (one, very long) page. And by incorporating the tactility of maps\u2014the ways they lay and spring, the ways they can be unfolded\u2014she further defamiliarizes the book form. These features forced me to reconsider what I do with my hands as I read even the most typical paperback\u2014what my expectations are as I turn their pages. In these ways, 43<\/em> prompts its readers to answer de Certeau\u2019s call: to investigate those mundane, unconscious actions for a deeper meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I would be remiss to ignore the social structures that brought me to this book in the first place; I am pursuing a graduate degree at a state school so that I can secure a financially, socially, and intellectually rewarding career. It was all of this that pointed me toward what I am exploring now. All of this that led me to the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance <\/em>of my semester\u2019s research: The Sovereign Map<\/em> by Christian Jacob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was equipped with google maps when I started walking south from UGA\u2019s North Campus, which I know like the back of my hand. Having circumnavigated the Main Library\u2019s third floor\u2014realizing there were no \u201cGA\u201d racks\u2014I took a closer look at my screenshot of the shelfmark. \u201cLocation: Science<\/em> 3rd<\/sup> Floor\u201d (emphasis mine). I\u2019d never been to the Science Library. I cut my losses, vaguely anxious about entering this new space. But the Gil-Find summary of The Sovereign Map<\/em> was too enticing, and with Google Maps to chart the course, the dictates of graduate-level coursework billowing my sails, I set off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is a tome: over 400 pages of \u201cTheoretical Approaches in Cartography throughout History,\u201d as its subtitle promises.  There was no way I could read the whole thing on top of all of my other coursework. But\u2014using that nifty little navigational device that we know and love: the table of contents (thanks, early print culture!)\u2014I was able to pick out a few promising chapter titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vermeer's<\/a>
Johannes Vermeer’s The Geographer<\/em> (Credit: Wikimedia Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Atlas: A Book of Maps,\u201d Jacob examines this particular genre of book\/map synthesis. This is where I was introduced to the concept of the \u201ccartographical gaze,\u201d or the ways that maps control the way we look at them and at the world around us by offering us potent symbolism through their materialized representations. If the world map presents us with a god\u2019s eye view of our environment, but lacks the representative detail of large-scale local maps, then atlases split the difference. These books, indebted to print technology in their accumulation of so many localized maps, form a summative whole that have inspired much imagination and armchair travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Close<\/a>
Virginiae, partis australis, et Floridae partis orientalis<\/em>, Blaeu, 1640, cropped with old style legend circled in red. (Courtesy of Hargrett Library, full image on there website here<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then, in \u201cThe Map and its Legends,\u201d Jacob waxes for 26 pages on this<\/em> nifty little navigational device. Legends, these days, are those little charts in the corner of maps that indicate which lexicalized concepts a viewer ought to assign to certain shape, colors, or symbols. But this wasn\u2019t always the case. In fact, they originated as syntactical<\/em> observations in cartographically empty spaces\u2014features like the one indicated in the image above, which, translated from Latin, reads, \u201cAppalachian Mountains in which copper gold and silver can be found.\u201d Their shift, then, to a word-graphic equivalence, as well as to a space outside the map proper (see, again, room-type color coding in Hargrett map below), has had profound effects on the legend\u2019s functionality: its manipulation of the viewer\u2019s cartographic gaze and their reception of the map\u2019s symbolism. In the legend\u2019s transit, it has achieved a greater semblance of cartographic objectivity. It promotes a particular kind of cognitive cross-reference within a single map. In doing so, it prompts the viewer to apply their own understanding of a lexical concept to a stable, material image. This, in the end, is ostensibly less biased than a declarative statement from the mapmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Hargrett Library Floor Plan, 3rd Floor<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard not to keep writing about the other theoretical approaches to map-function that Jacob offers.  The ways that they shed light on 43<\/em>\u2019s remediation and functionality.  But I\u2019m already close to running long and losing your attention (if I haven\u2019t already), dear reader. Suffice for now that maps are markedly social objects, and they have a complicated history of forms and features that affect how they function in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click through, at your leisure, to read my final blog post <\/a>(coming Dec. 6), where I will have space to expand further and you can see exactly why exactly I bring up these two Sovereign Map <\/em>insights, in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Consulted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown, Barry and Eric Laurier. \u201cMaps and Journeys: An Ethno-methodological Investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cartographica<\/em>, vol. 40, no. 3, Fall 2005, p. 17-33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Certeau, Michel. \u201cReading as Poaching.\u201d The Practice of Everyday Life<\/em>. Translated by Steven<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randall, University of California Press, 1984, pp. 165-176.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacob, Christian. The Sovereign Map<\/em>. The University of Chicago Press, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social<\/em>. Oxford University Press, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price, Robin. 43, According to Robin Price, with Annotated Bibliography<\/em>. 2007. Robin Price.    Rare<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books Vault, Special Collections Library, University of Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Header image: “Maps” opening, showcasing the view of 43<\/em>‘s bottom-layer accordion that such a position allows <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early 1980s, a group of sociologists at Mines ParisTech developed a new approach to their field. They sought, simply, to account for those…<\/p>\n

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