Editing Cartography (section)

==Deconstruction==
There are technical and cultural aspects to producing maps. In this sense, maps can sometimes be said to be biased. The study of bias, influence, and agenda in making a map is what comprise a map's [[deconstruction]]. A central tenet of deconstructionism is that maps have power. Other assertions are that maps are inherently biased and that we search for metaphor and rhetoric in maps.<ref name=Harley/>

It is claimed that the Europeans promoted an "[[epistemology|epistemological]]" understanding of the map as early as the 17th century.<ref name=Harley>{{cite journal |url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-map?rgn=main;view=fulltext |title=Harley, J. B. (1989). "Deconstructing the Map". Cartographica, Vol. 26, No. 2. pp 1-5 |journal=Passages |year=1992 |last1=Harley |first1=J. B. |access-date=2015-03-24 |archive-date=2015-04-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402100247/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0003.008/--deconstructing-the-map?rgn=main;view=fulltext |url-status=live }}</ref> An example of this understanding is that "[<nowiki />European reproduction of terrain on maps] reality can be expressed in mathematical terms; that systematic observation and measurement offer the only route to cartographic truth…".<ref name=Harley/>

A common belief is that science heads in a direction of progress, and thus leads to more accurate representations of maps. In this belief, European maps must be superior to others, which necessarily employed different map-making skills. "There was a 'not cartography' land where lurked an army of inaccurate, heretical, subjective, valuative, and ideologically distorted images. Cartographers developed a 'sense of the other' in relation to nonconforming maps."<ref name=Harley/>

Depictions of Africa are a common target of [[deconstructionism]].<ref>Stone, Jeffrey C. (1988). "Imperialism, Colonialism and Cartography". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, N.S. 13. Pp 57.</ref> According to deconstructionist models, cartography was used for strategic purposes associated with imperialism and as instruments and representations of power<ref name="Basset">{{cite journal |last1=Bassett |first1=J. T. |year=1994 |title=Cartography and Empire Building in the Nineteenth-Century West Africa |journal=[[Geographical Review]] |volume=84 |issue=3 |pages=316–335 |doi=10.2307/215456 |jstor=215456|bibcode=1994GeoRv..84..316B }}</ref> during the conquest of Africa. The depiction of Africa and the low latitudes in general on the [[Mercator projection]] has been interpreted as imperialistic and as symbolic of subjugation due to the diminished proportions of those regions compared to higher latitudes where the European powers were concentrated.<ref name="Monmonier">{{cite book|last=Monmonier |first=Mark |date=2004 |title=Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection |page=152 |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]}} (Thorough treatment of the social history of the Mercator projection and Gall–Peters projections.)</ref>

Maps furthered imperialism and colonization of Africa in practical ways by showing basic information like roads, terrain, natural resources, settlements, and communities. Through this, maps made European commerce in Africa possible by showing potential commercial routes and made natural resource extraction possible by depicting locations of resources. Such maps also enabled military conquests and made them more efficient, and imperial nations further used them to put their conquests on display. These same maps were then used to cement territorial claims, such as at the [[Berlin Conference]] of 1884–1885.<ref name="Basset" />

Before 1749, maps of the African continent had African kingdoms drawn with assumed or contrived boundaries, with unknown or unexplored areas having drawings of animals, imaginary physical geographic features, and descriptive texts. In 1748, Jean B. B. d'Anville created the first map of the African continent that had blank spaces to represent the unknown territory.<ref name="Basset" />