On the Inside of Maps: Critical Cartography

The article is devoted to the discussion of the key problems of critical cartography, to which the materials presented in this issue of Logos are devoted. At the beginning the main points of this problematics are outlined by analyzing Buchra Khalili’s art project The Mapping Journey Project (2008–2011). Then the idea of critical cartography is introduced. Firstly, the critique is aimed at the ideas of modern Western common sense and official scientific ideology, first of all professional cartographers themselves, about the map as a neutral and objective representation. Secondly, it is aimed at the ways, contexts and consequences of the production and use of the map in socio-political practices from colonization, wars and the reshaping of social communities to the management of territories, nation-building and routing.

According to critics of cartography, maps record not the landscape as a concrete material reality, but a strictly defined set of relations to this reality, conditioned by social, political, cultural and economic realities. The map is an important part of broader communications and practices. Despite the relative conceptual autonomy of mathematical and technical constructions and actions necessary for the production of the map, it can in no way be considered as something autonomous. It is essentially instrumental, situational and has significance only to the extent that it is part of the broader systems in which it is functionally included. In this sense, the map can be represented as an object in the process of constant formation, it is never ready and always needs to be finalized. The map is the result of the work of many institutions, a large chain of collective actions from data collection and systematization to mathematical processing, layout and circulation. In conclusion, the semiological aspect of maps is discussed: it is defined by the syntagma of the route and the syntagma of the border. Therefore, if the map expresses itself, this statement has two modes — “travel” and “delimitation.”