Author
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Topic: are world maps ethnocentric?
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Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808
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posted 07 January 2004 07:13 AM
saw an episode of West Wing on DVD during the holidays, in which a group called Cartographers for Social Equity was lobbying the President to endorse the Peters Projection world map over the traditional, ostensibly Eurocentric Mercator projectionan obscure debate? political correctness gone overboard? maybe, maybe not: http://tinyurl.com/29wod http://tinyurl.com/3dfb6 [ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: Geneva ]
From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003
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praenomen3
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4758
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posted 07 January 2004 02:42 PM
quote: Originally posted by Mr. Magoo: Both projections put "north" at the top too... another arbitrary choice on the part of the first mapmakers and cartographers.
It wasn't arbitrary, nor is it some sinister plot to demean sub-equatorial peoples. The Pole - or North - star was the common reference point for early navigators in the northern hemisphere. The farther north you travelled, the higher the Pole Star appeared in the sky. For them, north was literally on top. Since they made the maps, the association stuck. Should we have new reference points in a world with different perspectives? Sure, but it's easier said than done. Remember the fracas when JC thought about renaming Mt. Logan to Mt. Trudeau? And that was just one mountain in one country. Trying to reverse the 'north is up' tradition among the world at large would be a nightmare - think of the maps, compasses and navigation. Politics aside, the Pole Star really is quite special. It pretty much stays in the same place all night long, while the rest of the stars and constellations revolve around it.
From: x | Registered: Dec 2003
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Albireo
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3052
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posted 07 January 2004 03:29 PM
2 points:-If you just take a midpoint near the equator and flatten it all out from there (as many maps do), you end up with Greenland looking like it's bigger than Africa, which is absurd. -It used to be quite common to see U.S.-centric maps, that would assume that the centre of the world is the state of Kansas. In order to accommodate this, Asia would be severed, with half appearing at the left edge of the map, and the rest appearing at the right. I'm sure there are still some maps like that around, notably in the U.S. [ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: albireo ]
From: --> . <-- | Registered: Sep 2002
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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064
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posted 07 January 2004 03:49 PM
quote: Actuall the flattening problem also gives Canadians a distorted view of the size of Canada relative to the US.
Yes, but this is true only -- or truest -- in the old Mercator projection (the second graphic reproduced above), which is also the one in which Greenland looks bigger than South America. The Transverse Mercator, just to take one example, provides less distortion in relative size. More recent projections are better still. The projection which best represents area (relatives sizes of continents) while distorting continent shapes the least is probably Goode's "orange-peel" projection. Trouble is, it cuts the oceans (and Greenland) into two, and Antarctica into four. quote: Canada looks wayyyyy bigger but I believe the actual difference is 5 to 7 %. I do not know for sure due to different figures from different sources. I do hear Canucks often brag obout hoew much bigger Canada is.
According to the CIA World Fact Book (I think we can probably trust it on something like this), Canada's total area (land plus water) is 9,984,670, and the US's 9,629,091 (including all 50 states and DC). That makes Canada about 3.7% bigger. Nothing to brag about, of course. Just a geographic datum, reflecting no credit on us. It's not like we built the land mass with our bare hands, or anything. [ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001
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Hinterland
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4014
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posted 07 January 2004 04:07 PM
quote: It's not like we built the land mass with our bare hands, or anything.
Au contraire, M. Lance; I personally can take credit for a lateral moraine near the Malaspina ridge in Northern Ontario and for that peninsula on the south-west shore of Great Slave Lake that looks suspiciously like Flora MacDonald's left breast. I put a lot of work into those, and I'm very proud. In fact, I am so proud of Canada's vastness, I have to sing: When i look around me, i can't believe what i see it seems as if this country has lost it's will to live the economy is lousy, we barely have an army but we can still stand proudly because canada's really big we're the second largest country on this planet earth and if Russia keeps on shrinking, then soon we'll be first! (as long as we keep quebec) The USA has tanks, and switzerland has banks they can keep them banks, they just don't amount cause when you get down to it, you find out what the truth is, it isn't what you do with it, it's the size that counts most people will tell you that france is pretty large but you can put fourteen france's, into this land of ours! (it'd take a lot of work, it'd take a whole lot of work we're bigger than malaysia, we're most as big as asia we're bigger than australia and it's a continent so big we sell them butter, to go see one another but we often go to other countries for vacations our mountains are very pointy, our praries are not the rest is kinda bumpy, but man do we have a lot! (we've got a lot of land, we've got a whole lot of land) so stand up and be proud and sing it very loud we stand out from the crwod, cause Canada's really big ...lyrics courtesy of Arrogant Worms.
From: Québec/Ontario | Registered: Apr 2003
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Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469
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posted 07 January 2004 05:33 PM
Well, this much I think we can all agree on: all of our attitudes towards brown peoples of the world are based on how dinky their puny little countries are on the map we saw in school 20 years ago! Only Greenland, mighty Greenland, deserves to be our friend. Right?
From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002
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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064
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posted 07 January 2004 05:39 PM
quote: I personally can take credit for a lateral moraine near the Malaspina ridge in Northern Ontario ...
... you bastard. You know perfectly well I not only designed that thing, I had it three-quarters built before coming down with the flu, that winter of '06. Own up, Hinterland, or I'll see you in court. "Hinterland," my ass. You probably live in a condo in downtown Toronto, like that poseur Jack Layton, and buy double no-fat cappuccinos before getting into your BMW in the morning...
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 07 January 2004 05:53 PM
quote: Originally posted by Mr. Magoo: Well, this much I think we can all agree on: all of our attitudes towards brown peoples of the world are based on how dinky their puny little countries are on the map we saw in school 20 years ago! Only Greenland, mighty Greenland, deserves to be our friend. Right?
You know, why the hell is it that people like you insist on deriding any viewpoint that considers facts in an alternative light? The Mercator projection may very well not, on a conscious level, have been used to distort perceptions about the world, but the fact is, humans generally get impressed by big things and unimpressed by small things. The Mercator projection unintentionally enlarges the industrialized nations relative to the LDCs, and this can cause a subconscious bias in thinking that is reinforced by where the mass media points a great deal of its attention.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469
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posted 07 January 2004 06:04 PM
quote: You know, why the hell is it that people like you insist on deriding any viewpoint that considers facts in an alternative light?
Sometimes they're pretty deridable. And I find it a necessary antidote to the strident or excessively P.C. way in which they're often presented (I'm not referring to Geneva here). Sometimes things like this look less like a problem in need of a solution than people in need of a problem. And for what it's worth, I think this particular problem suffers from an "It could, therefore it does" error in logic. Has anyone ever, y'know, actually put the scientific method to work on this? Or are people pretty much assuming that because we tend to like big things more than small things that therefore we "must" like northern countries better than equatorial countries because of their size on the Mercator? Has anyone ever checked to see if we think better of the USSR/Russia, or Greenland, or for that matter Antarctica, because of it? If not, then it starts to smell a little like someone with time on their hands looking for yet another way that we awful North Americans have been mean to everyone else.
From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002
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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064
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posted 07 January 2004 07:20 PM
quote: I was just looking at the CIA site today. They sure aren't impartial when it comes to Cuba.
I'm sure. But do they claim it's smaller in area than it actually is? ('lance goes to check... please stand by) Edited: OK, Mapquest sez Cuba is 110,860 square kilometres in area. So does Lonely Planet. And the CIA agrees! (You can call me a brat now, if you like ). [ 07 January 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001
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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064
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posted 07 January 2004 11:03 PM
< arm-waving >Well, I know much less about the Chinese nuclear capability than about the Soviet (as, I suspect, did most of the Cold Warriors back in the day). They probably had, have, some ICBM capacity -- but even if it approaches the old Soviet one, it's never been on ostentatious display to anything near the same extent. Their nuclear-armed subs, if any, were I think primitive by Soviet standards. That may have changed. And they didn't have fleets of long-range bombers, nuclear-armed bombers aimed at North American like the Soviets. < /arm-waving > Nor were the Chinese planting medium-range nuclear missiles within minutes' flying time of Western European cities. From the Western European and American point of view, the Soviets were just there -- you could see them at Checkpoint Charlie, or on the east bank of the Elbe, or whatever. The Chinese? Well, they're not here, are they, Henry? They're off squabblin' with the Russians along the Mongolian border, or with the Vietnamese... maybe we can somehow use 'em as a counterweight to the Russians, ya think? Maybe the greater Western fear of the USSR had its irrational aspects, or was based partly on ignorance, or irrelevant rubbish, or whatever. My point is, I don't believe it had anything to do with the greater physical size of the USSR. Everyone knew that it was an empire full of restive minorities, but also that much of that size was taken up just by more-or-less empty tundra, that added not a whit to the country's power. quote: Oh, I'm sure they're impartial about size, 'lance. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
Yeah, I was just teasing. I don't expect a whole lot from that Fact Book when it comes to anything political or social.
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469
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posted 08 January 2004 12:31 AM
quote: And China didn't have nuclear weapons?
Seems to me that the U.S. was at least as worried about Cuba, tiny though it is there, right near the equator, and shrunk to near-teensy by the Mercator (well, strictly speaking, accurate but dwarfed by the distorted north). And then of course Greenland, puffed up to 8 times it's normal size and near enough to throw warheads at the U.S., was never considered a danger whatsoever.
From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002
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arborman
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4372
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posted 08 January 2004 09:45 PM
Actually, there is a whole branch of research devoted to the social and anthropological relationships denoted in maps.A book titled 'Violent Cartographies' by, someone whose name I forget, is a good start. Maps can say a lot about how the people who drew them perceive the world and their place in it (usually the centre, eg. the maps above). They can also say a lot about how they perceive the place of members of the 'rest' of the world. By the way, if I'm not mistaken, Greenland is smaller than Central America. Our normal map tends to show it as a collection of dinky little countries, and they tend to get dismissed as such in many cases. I don't know if there's a link, but there HAS been a lot of work on the subject to explore it. The maps under discussion are certainly 'Eurocentric', as Europe is in the center...
From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003
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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064
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posted 08 January 2004 10:07 PM
quote: By the way, if I'm not mistaken, Greenland is smaller than Central America.
< pendantry > Only if you include Mexico in Central America, which not everyone does. Otherwise, if you include only Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, Greenland's about four times their combined size. < /pendantry > Edit: South America, incidentally, has around 8 times the area of Greenland. [ 08 January 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pogo
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2999
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posted 11 January 2004 07:25 PM
Originally from the Victoria Times Colonist, Ever Visited Lust Lake or Naked Man? by Katherine Dedyna quote: In her role for Geist, the self described atlas geek has devised more than 15 theme-based maps.Now for the Menstrual Map (Right on Schedule). It overflows with place names from Port Moody B.C., to Leakville, Sask., continues with Cramp Creak and Red Secret Point in Ontario reaching Lac Tampon, Que., and finally Gush Cove Labrador. Magazine staffers wondered how far they could push the map motif and "that seemed to be about the limit".
From: Richmond BC | Registered: Aug 2002
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