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Representing the Politics of Borders: Unorthodox Maps in Reclus, Mackinder and Others

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14650045.2014.964861

1557-3028

Edoardo Boria,

Historical Geography and Geographical Thought

AbstractThe relationship between cartography and power has aroused much interest in recent years, stimulated by innovative critical approaches. The empiricist and neo-positivist paradigms, no longer satisfactory, have been abandoned, while the analysis has been extended to include not only state-sponsored, but also popular cartography. Regardless of the character of the map or its source, it continues to be inserted in the context of the modern territorial state, as it is perceived as a key instrument for conveying the state’s narrative. Seen in this light, cartography inevitably comes out on the subordinate end of this relationship, since it fully conforms to the orthodox state-centred world view that has dominated modernity. Overturning this mechanically deconstructionist approach, this paper proposes, instead, to apply a concept introduced by John Brian Harley, the father of critical cartography – that of the map’s internal power. This concept, usually considered a given and rarely tested in empirical studies, is evaluated here through an analysis of the border sign in a series of unorthodox maps (in the work of Reclus, Mackinder, Renner, Spykman, Horrabin, Radó, Ratzel, Kjèllen, Haushofer) which have received little scientific attention to date. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their in-depth comments on the content of this manuscript, which have stimulated numerous important reflections. My thanks go also to Simona Sermoneta, Shmuel Gertel, Bianca Maria Mennini and Matteo Marconi for their patient reading and constructive comments, as well as to Elena dell’Agnese for having set in motion the process that ultimately resulted in the publication of this paper.Notes1. M. Houellebecq, La carte et le territoire (Paris: Flammarion 2010) p. 82.2. P. Shirlow, ‘Representation’, in C. Gallaher, C. Dahlman, A. Mountz, P. Shirlow, and M. 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L ‘Afrique Septentrionale (Paris: Hachette 1886).41. É. Reclus, Nuova Geografia Universale. La terra e gli uomini. XVI. L’Oceania e le terre oceaniche (Milan: Vallardi 1900) pp. 410, 480, 514, 579, 774 and 869.42. É. Reclus, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle. La Terre et les Hommes. XVIII. Amérique du Sud. Les Régions Andines (Paris: Hachette 1893).43. See pages 403, 484, 626 and 690.44. On pages 408, 696 and 491.45. See pages 51, 65, 196, 445, 551 and 764.46. M. Pollelle, Raising Cartographic Consciousness. The Social and Foreign Policy Vision of Geopolitics in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Lexington Books 1999) pp. 9–15; B. W Blouet, ‘The Imperial Vision of Halford Mackinder’, in The Geographical Journal 170/4 (2004) pp. 322–329.47. Ó Tuathail (note 8) p. 33.48. See the monographical issue of The Geographical Journal 170/4 (Dec. 2004).49. B. W. Blouet, Geopolitics and Globalization in the Twentieth Century (London: Reaktion Books 2001) pp. 119–121; C. Gray, ‘In Defence of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years On’, in Comparative Strategy 23/1 (2004) pp. 9–25; C. Stefanachi, ‘Nicholas J. Spykman e la nascita del realismo politico’, in Storia del pensiero politico 2 (2013) pp. 283–310.50. S. Kern, 2007, Il tempo e lo spazio (Bologna: Il Mulino 2007) pp. 307–313; original edition: The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1983).51. A. K. Henrikson, ‘The Map as an “Idea”: The Role of Cartographic Imagery During the Second World War’, in The American Cartographer 2/1 (1975) pp. 19–5352. Schulten (note 23) pp. 138–143.53. M. C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005).54. S. B. Cohen, Geography and Politics in a Divided World (London: Methuen 1964). The key map of his thesis appears on p. 63, and is titled “The World’s Geostrategic Regions and Their Geopolitical Subdivisions”.55. “The nations and boundaries of to-day do no more than mark claims to exemptions, privileges, and corners in the market – claims valid enough to those whose minds and souls are turned towards the past, but absurdities to those who look to the future as the end and justification of our present stresses. The claim to political liberty amounts, as a rule, to no more than the claim of a man to live in a parish without observing sanitary precautions or paying rates because he had an excellent great-grandfather. Against all these old isolations, these obsolescent particularisms, the forces of mechanical and scientific development fight, and fight irresistibly”; H. G. Wells, Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (London: Chapman & Hall 1902 [1st ed. 1901]) p. 245.56. “The problem of illustrations was a very difficult one for him [the author], for he had had non previous experience in the production of an illustrated book. In Mr. J. F. Horrabin he has had the good fortune to find not only an illustrator but a collaborator. Mr. Horrabin has spared no pains to make this work informative and exact. His maps and drawings are a part of the text, the most vital and decorative part”; H. G. Wells, The Outline of History Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (New York: The Macmillan Company 1920) p. viii.57. M. Skelton, ‘The Paratext of Everything. Constructing and Marketing H. G. Wells’s The Outline of History’, Book History 4 (2001) pp. 237–275.58. Translated into English from the Italian version: S. Radó, Nome di battaglia “Dora” (Milan: La Pietra 1972) p. 76; English edition: S. Radó, Codename Dora (London: Abelard 1977).59. “[Lenin] talked a little about how the problems of imperialism called for special forms of cartographical representation, and then asked casually whether I would not like to pursue the question in Russia, where there was a great shortage of Communist geographers. At the time I could not accept because I first wanted to complete my studies. But from then on I resolved to devote myself particularly to the geography and cartography of the Soviet Union and in particular to follow up Lenin’s ideas. This I sought to do in my first major geographical work, The Atlas of Imperialism, which was published in Berlin in 1929 and Tokyo in 1930. Needless to say, with Lenin’s help I got hold of all the maps I wanted”. Ibid., p. 53.60. The German edition was published by Verlag für Literatur und Politik. The English version was published in 1938 by Victor Gollancz who, during the same period, also published James Francis Horrabin’s work (see our third counter-narrative). Years later, the atlas was re-published in socialist East Germany on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its first edition.61. Radó had a very personal style, characterised by marked lines, a limited and politically significant colour palette of red and black, contrast (blank vs. filled-in spaces), and few, basic iconic symbols. He was one of the first to use pictograms in cartography. His style drew on various innovative trends of the turbulent artistic scene of the 1920s – from Soviet Constructivism, to German Bauhaus, to Otto Neurath’s Pictorial Statistics – all combined with a pronounced tendency to “think spatially”: Radó had “cartographic sensibility, that is, the instinctive tendency to perceive the state of the world – be it economic, political or ethnic – in spatial categories, and an interest in transposing them into cartographic forms of representation, into the language of maps. Radó had this spatial perspective”. K. Schlögel, Im Raume lesen Wir die Zeit. Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik (Munich: Hanser 2003); translated into English from the Italian version: Leggere il tempo nello spazio. Saggi di storia e geopolitica (Milan: Bruno Mondadori 2009) p. 85.62. Radó (note 58) p. 85.63. M. Eckert-Greifendorff, Kartographie. Ihre Aufgaben und Bedeutung für die Kultur der Gegenwart (Berlin: De Gruyter 1939) p. 340.64. 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Ratzel, Geografia dell’uomo (Torino: Bocca 1914) pp. 272–273; German edition: Anthropogeographie (Stuttgart: Engelhorn 1891).69. F. Lando, ‘La geografia di Friedrich Ratzel. Suolo, stato, popolo’, Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana V/3 (2012) p. 495.70. Herb, Under the Map (note 17).71. B. Streck, ‘Diffusionism and Geopolitics in the Work of Friedrich Ratzel’, in M. Antonsich, V. Kolossov, and M. P. Pagnini (eds.), On the Centenary of Ratzel’s Politische geographie. Europe between Political Geography and Geopolitics (Rome: Società Geografica Italiana 2001) p. 57.72. G. H. Herb, ‘The Politics of Political Geography’, in K. Cox, M. Low, and J. Robinson (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography (London: SAGE 2008) p. 31.73. E. Boria, Geopolitical Maps: A Sketch History of a Neglected Trend in Cartography, in Geopolitics 13/2 (2008) pp. 278–308.74. «Un objet historique, transitoire»; C. Grataloup, Représenter le monde (Paris: La Documentation Française 2011) p. 16.75. 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