This book brings together critical perspectives on the role that mapping people, knowledges and data now plays in humanitarian work, both in cartographic terms and through data visualisations. Since the rise of Google Earth in 2005, there has been an explosion in the use of mapping tools to quantify and assess the needs of the poor, including those affected by climate change and the wider neo-liberal agenda. Yet, while there has been a huge upsurge in the data produced around these issues, the representation of people remains questionable. Some have argued that representation has diminished in humanitarian crises as people are increasingly reduced to data points. In turn, this data becomes ever more difficult to analyse without vast computing power, leading to a dependency on the old colonial powers to refine the data of the poor, before selling it back to them. These issues are not entirely new, and questions around representation, participation and humanitarianism can be traced back beyond the speeches of Truman, but the digital age throws these issues back to the fore, as machine learning, algorithms and big data centres take over the process of mapping the subjugated and subaltern. This book questions whether, as we map crises, it is the map itself that is in crisis. This chapter assesses the eff ectiveness of critical cartography in raising a broader anti- colonial consciousness since the fi eld began, not only critiquing maps, but calling for movements to ‘counter- map’. We begin by providing a brief overview of the cultural context that gave rise to Western cartography in order to denaturalise it, and we then expand on how critical theory helped develop theoretical frameworks for scholarship on critical cartography following the decolonial movements of the 20th century. We then illustrate how, in spite of the growth of critical cartography and the call to countermap in the face of settlement, domination and exploitation, neocolonialism continues to advance the use of maps for its purposes in new, inventive forms. We conclude by suggesting that the dramatic rise in the gathering, storing, processing and delivering of geographic information today may continue to infl uence neocolonial cartographic practice and suggest throughout that attention to competing worldviews is central if a critical cartography is to be eff ective in dismantling colonial impositions of time and space.

Mapping as Tacit Reconstruction of Colonial Worldviews / Armano, E.; Bellone, T.; Engel-Di Mauro, S.; Fiermonte, F.; Quiquivix, L. - In: Mapping Crisis: Participation, Datafication, and Humanitarianism in the Age of Digital Mapping / Specht, D.. - STAMPA. - London : University of London Press, 2020. - ISBN 9781912250332. - pp. 17-37 [10.14296/920.9781912250387]

Mapping as Tacit Reconstruction of Colonial Worldviews

Bellone T.;Fiermonte F.;
2020

Abstract

This book brings together critical perspectives on the role that mapping people, knowledges and data now plays in humanitarian work, both in cartographic terms and through data visualisations. Since the rise of Google Earth in 2005, there has been an explosion in the use of mapping tools to quantify and assess the needs of the poor, including those affected by climate change and the wider neo-liberal agenda. Yet, while there has been a huge upsurge in the data produced around these issues, the representation of people remains questionable. Some have argued that representation has diminished in humanitarian crises as people are increasingly reduced to data points. In turn, this data becomes ever more difficult to analyse without vast computing power, leading to a dependency on the old colonial powers to refine the data of the poor, before selling it back to them. These issues are not entirely new, and questions around representation, participation and humanitarianism can be traced back beyond the speeches of Truman, but the digital age throws these issues back to the fore, as machine learning, algorithms and big data centres take over the process of mapping the subjugated and subaltern. This book questions whether, as we map crises, it is the map itself that is in crisis. This chapter assesses the eff ectiveness of critical cartography in raising a broader anti- colonial consciousness since the fi eld began, not only critiquing maps, but calling for movements to ‘counter- map’. We begin by providing a brief overview of the cultural context that gave rise to Western cartography in order to denaturalise it, and we then expand on how critical theory helped develop theoretical frameworks for scholarship on critical cartography following the decolonial movements of the 20th century. We then illustrate how, in spite of the growth of critical cartography and the call to countermap in the face of settlement, domination and exploitation, neocolonialism continues to advance the use of maps for its purposes in new, inventive forms. We conclude by suggesting that the dramatic rise in the gathering, storing, processing and delivering of geographic information today may continue to infl uence neocolonial cartographic practice and suggest throughout that attention to competing worldviews is central if a critical cartography is to be eff ective in dismantling colonial impositions of time and space.
2020
9781912250332
9781912250370
9781912250387
Mapping Crisis: Participation, Datafication, and Humanitarianism in the Age of Digital Mapping
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2833617