Browse Exhibits (1 total)

Where in the world are we? Where in the world do we think we are?

If anything should be an objective and reliable source of information, maps should be. We trust maps to guide us, and to tell us where we are. However, in reality, maps are representations of the world we know, the world that holds the society in which we live - and they illustrate more about our society than its physical geograpy. 

Maps of North America show the Eurocentrism that inherent in our society. The distortion inherent to map projection enlarges white spaces and minimizes nonwhite spaces. The use of European toponyms on maps of North America communicates that the history of those spaces began with European "settlement" and not with North America's indigenous communities. In this way, maps are not so much truth as they are apocrypha. 

We do not only use maps to tell us where we are and to get where we are going. We use maps to teach our children where they are, where they live. When people think of the use of maps, generally, they think that the world becomes the map. But to the child, the map becomes the world. 

This exhibit contains some maps created by indigenous people of North America. Though the map projections are generally still distorted, the toponyms are indigenous and the territorial morphology is the design significant to a given indigenous community. These maps are still disputed and very controversial.