Historically, cartographers have faced an interesting problem: how to represent the three-dimensional globe in the two-dimensional space of a map. This challenge has resulted in various projection types (Mercator, Robinson and Goode Homolosine, to name a few) but no map can be truly perfect. Glossing over the mathematical explanations, any two-dimensional map of a three-dimensional space will be somewhat distorted.
Okay, no map can be truly objective—so what? Maps are often charged with political and cultural significance, acting as a source of knowledge that surpasses simple topography. In the “West Wing” episode “Big Block of Cheese Day,” Press Secretary C.J. Cregg meets with the (fictitious) Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality. This group lobbies against the Mercator map projection, saying it has “fostered European imperialist attitudes for centuries and created an ethnic bias against the third world.” This seems like a rash claim, but the cartographical activists point out that despite the image on the Mercator map, “Africa is in reality fourteen times larger than Greenland.” Later in the episode, the cartographers flip the image of the world map, situating the Northern hemisphere on the bottom. C.J. tells them: “You can’t do that,” and they respond with “Why not?” To this, C.J. can only say, “Because it’s freaking me out.”
C.J.’s reaction is funny, but it highlights an important point about mapping—there are biases at work in every single map projection and therefore in many pictoral representations of our world. These orientational biases (North is on top, Africa is the size of Greenland, etc.) are so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we don’t even consider how dominant social forces can shape our conception of the space around us.
In his article “A case against digitizing space,” Eliot Taft ’15 describes how “we project distance and create space in our mind [relying] on the memories we have formed of the places through which we have traveled.” I completely agree with this, and I thought it was an interesting way to approach the topic of digital mapping. And yet when I read his article, I felt there was something to be said for the “perfectly and sterilely and horribly correct and accurate” satellite mappings the article condemns.
As we see in the various map projections, by crafting space in different ways, we attribute special meaning to particular places, prominently representing “more important” locations. But what if instead of being stored in our psyche and rooted in individual nostalgia, this representation of space were distributed to a wide group of people and marketed as an objective tool? People constantly rely on maps to live and work in society. A personal conception of space—while interesting and important in many ways—shouldn’t dictate the development of an entire community.
But then where can we obtain this “objective” representation? In the digital age, have we finally solved the age-old problem of two-dimensional map projection? Can we all simply follow our smartphones into a future free from bias and oppression? Of course not. Considering how many different digital mappings there are (Google, Apple—does anyone remember MapQuest?), we need to consider what biases or agendas may be at work in the digital representation of the world.
For example, if I visit Google maps and type the letter “A” into the search bar, the search engine produces the following suggestions (in descending order): Amtrack, Advance Auto Parts, Australia, Argentina and Austria. These suggestions may be “personalized for me” in some way depending on my web history (an interesting topic in itself) but Google clearly doesn’t present a “dully objective” conception of reality.
This leads us back to Taft’s article. If even smartphones can’t represent the world in a truly objective way, it may seem like we should just allow our personal experiences to shape our idea of space. But I think there’s another option worth considering. Instead of isolating our individual experiences and allowing personal bias to craft an insular view of the world, digital platforms could allow us to share our own ideas about space and create a more complex, comprehensive mapping of Earth— democratizing, if you will, our ideas about the world.
Understanding the impossibility of objectivity in mapping can allow us to explore the various viewpoints that constitute our communities. We can’t possibly represent the world in a single way, but by attempting to free ourselves from the dominant powers that shape society, we can discover and consider many different and potentially underrepresented social perspectives. And maybe then, we’ll realize that the whole world has been upside-down all along.
Jesse Ortiz is a member of the Class of 2016.