Cartographic Conspiracies: Maps, Misinformation, and Exploitation in Peter Carey's "American Dreams"

IF, AS DENIS WOOD ARGUES IN THE OF MAPS, POWER is ability to do (1 ), then this is precisely what do: work. Wood posits that work in at least two different senses. Firstly, they operate effectively. They work, that is ... don't fail (1, emphases original). In order to work in this sense, must also work in sense of effort, of production-Wood states that maps sweat, strain, apply themselves in order to maintain the ceaseless reproduction of culture that brings them into being (1). The starting point of Wood's thesis serves to remind reader of seductively straightforward appearance of connection between image and viewerfor average map reader, map is territory, regardless of Korzybski's famous dictum that map is not territory it (58).1Wood's description of as reproducing culture of origin hints at complexities of discursive relationship between mimetic and interpretative faculties of viewer. The effort involved in creating map involves not only research, planning, drawing up and physical production of cartographic image itself-that is, object reader holds in his or her hands-but also creation or manipulation of a semiotic system, a cartographic code, a set of culturally adopted conventions that will permit mapmaker to transmit information to intended audience in a form that is simultaneously comprehensive and comprehensible. As Jonathan Culler notes in The Pursuit of Signs, We can only claim a map actually resembles what it represents if we take for granted and pass over in silence numerous complicated conventions. Icons seem to be based on natural resemblance, but in fact are determined by semiotic convention (24). Thus, mapmaking is in essence a matter of compromise and balance, requiring value judgments and a degree of interpretation on part of both creator and reader. The mapmaker deploys cartographic strategies such as reduction in scale, iconic symbolism (cross as church), and enforced projection in order to articulate a particular perspective on territory under surveillance.2 Christopher Board, in as Models, adds possibility of human artifice in creation of representation (671) to this list of flaws in semiotic makeup of cartographic system. In turn, reader (although usually ignorant of last of these flaws) agrees to consider this distortion of reality as a working model of real thing. This willingness to compromise gestures towards a system of communication that tacitly and mutually accepts, and simultaneously disguises, fact that the only perfectly faithful depiction [of territory] would be an identical copy of reality itself (Board 671 ). This Borgesian conceit aside, even few problematic factors listed above indicate potential for deconstruction inherent in relationship between map and reader.This dialogue between production and consumption of information may be considered analogous to Foucaldian reading of dialectic between knowledge and power. Maps articulate, structure, and transmit knowledge in a manner that projects (and actively propagates) a detached, unbiased, and scientific way of working. As hinted at by both Wood and Board (along with other cartographic theorists such as Paul Carter), however, tend to reveal less of landscape and more of motivations of maker-and culture which informs that maker-than this appearance of objectivity and transparency would initially suggest. Leaving aside accidental cartographic errors and distortions brought about by mimetic limitations inherent in reducing reality to a two-dimensional image, it is clear that embody exactly kind of knowledge that may be, and often is, manipulated for political, military, or economic ends. The cartographic image may be read as what Foucault terms the process by which knowledge functions as a form of power and disseminates effects of power. …