I'm beginning to wonder if we're entering (or indeed have entered) an aspatial arrangement, and if technology is leading the charge.  A few recent examples have struck me and got me wondering if it was technology that caused earlier shifts in the late eighteenth century that had western european society moving from a non-spatial (or better yet aspatial) world to a more fully spatialised one, a world where ideally there was full congruence between the Nation and the State.

In the current context, I'm struck by communications technology in particular that no longer cares where we are to assign identity (in this case telephone numbers).  Although somehow they manage to charge for long distance calls. Consider for example MTS's recent approach to a lack of numbers. They've chosen to add three digit codes to all new phone numbers, but where in the past this was known as an 'area code' and truly did refer to an area, the new system presumably because of the mobility of the telephones, simply adds these numbers to any new line.  There is no longer a good way to determine where physically a phone number  is located. If this is the case, what was the technology in the eighteenth century that provided the push into a spatial world. Was it, as I had surmised many years ago, the advent of surveying and cartographic techniques, pioneered by Ambros von Amman, David Thompson, and the rest?

GIS vs. Geography

Bit of a personal journey, but I've been thinking about what the difference between a geographer (me) and cartographer is.  In essence, cartographer (aka, GIS) is one tool that a geographer can use to understand and articulate spatial distribution of events or phenomena. 


But there is so much more to it.  Other tools I use are critical thinking, analysis, recognition of particular epistemologies, ability to identify and counter popular arguments, the recognition that geographies are actively created through unintentional and unplanned arguments and actions.  For example a pervasive world view of liberalism in the 19th century, that throughout western Europe and ultimately the world, held that humanity might be liberated by the geographical coincidence of nation and state, produced a very unique geography with dominant nations neatly compartmentalised across the globe, and less dominant groups being subject to discrimination, diminished social status, oppression and in extreme cases genocide.

These are tools not often in the toolkit of GIS practioners, although many a professional in most any field these days, might be expected to have these.


Ever since making a monumental shift in my career away from what I thought was a profession in Geography to Librarian, my Librarian colleagues, somewhat misguidedly, as it seems to me now, steered me towards gis or map librarianship.  This is a highly technical skill that certainly isn't beyond me to learn, but a set of skills I was not presented with early on in my career.   My skills and / or training extends beyond this, or at best run parallel to this.  Opportunities to retrain are rare (I've seized many), and yet professional positions elude me.  Is it time to recognize that the divisions set out some time after Humboldt, between cartography (an art) and geography (a scientific or humanistic pursuit) are here to stay, or indeed that GIS has moved away from the realm of Geography.  Its popularity and ease of use, has certainly made it very attractive to a wide variety of applications that should have recognized its value generations ago, but for lack of easy and computer power would hope that somebody else dealt with it.  Then the question I'd like to address in time (another posting perhaps) is what are the origins of the difference between cartography and geography, when did they split, why, and what of it?