On 2013-02-03 13:29, Tom Taylor wrote:
I'm interested in OSM. I do mapping. I subscribed to Talk after a few weeks on Newbies, but all these political outcries strongly tempt me to unsubscribe. They don't contribute to the mapping that is presumably our primary interest.
maps are inherently political. to suggest they are not, and are mere reflections of some sort of objective reality is wrong. if you're involved in maps, there will be politics. whether you realise it or not and whether the ideology they display is visible or not, are other matters.
they set out notions of what is important in a society, reify abstract boundaries and thus nations-states.
i read this recently, it had some major flaws, but made a good argument as to the political nature of maps:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1921340 also: http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=DSFHnonqr7kC&dq=map+political&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pSQOUbCAIuzwmAXb-oCwBA&redir_esc=y http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=WhyPBHJV5VYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=map+political&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pSQOUbCAIuzwmAXb-oCwBA&redir_esc=y i'm sure there are plenty of other journals and books that say similar. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
