One of the core themes of this class that I keep finding myself coming back to is the varying power of fact vs. fiction. There is power in reporting the truth, as objectively as possible. There is power in being able to definitively, quantifiably measure the impacts that we are imparting to our planet. But there is also power in telling a story. In telling a story no less true for its lack of “facts,” but a story that tells the truth of the emotions. A story of what a relationship with our land means, and what it means with that relationship is taken away or jeopardized by forces entirely out of your control. Those aren’t stories that we can tell with facts. Both of these stories are powerful.
I was struck in our conversation with mapping at how clearly mapping falls within this frame. Maps tell a story. They tell a story by using facts, but facts that are shaped entirely by people with stories. Yes, objectively the objects represented on a map are indeed there. But what meaning are those objects given? What objects are not given meaning?
The additional power of maps is in the story that of the user. The person reading a map uses that map to shape their relationship with their surroundings. They look at a map and they say yes, those are the things that are important and that I must know in order to understand how I should move within this space. They see a road on a map and they understand what it means to cross that road. They see a river and they understand the things that they need to get over that river. But what about the things that aren’t on a map? What about the things that may truly be impossible to put on a map? How can a map possibly explain to a freshman woman exactly how to cross through a room full of drunk men?
Maps occupy an interesting position on the spectrum of fact vs. fiction, and I haven’t fully been able to process exactly where I would put them. They are composed of fact, but shaped by the fictions of the author. Although I suppose that is true of all ‘factual’ writing, the map imbues that fiction with a special sort of power. We use maps to function, to understand how to move and how to act in our world. When those maps only show one world, what does that mean about how we can move?
