Colonial Vestiges on the Map
A Rhetorical History of Development Cartography at the United Nations during Post-War Decolonization
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22248692 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Timothy Barney (University of Richmond, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 173-198 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the History of Rhetoric (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2687-8003 • E-ISSN: 2687-8011 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1080/26878003.2020.1756980 |
| OpenAlex | W3045660923 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
In 1948, the United Nations set a resolution affirming the centrality of cartography to its plans for world development in its member nations. Following that resolution, the UN established a cartographic office, regular publications, and most importantly, a program of regional conferences that would begin in “Asia and the Far East” in 1955 and would start in Africa in 1963. This essay offers a rhetorical history of the UN’s early attempts to create technical assistance and exchange programs for mapping in the 1950s and 1960s. The argument is that UN development cartography articulated a tension between an idealistic, scientific internationalism with more national security concerns, amidst a backdrop of colonial histories and emerging superpower influence. Such influences speak to the ways decolonizing nations adopted the rhetorical forms, like maps, of the so-called developed nations, and faced the inequities and asymmetries of development discourse
Art · Cartography · China · Colonialism · Decolonization · Geography · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Superpower · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Development, Ethics, and Society · History · International Development and Aid · Law
Aerial Aftermaths
Imagining the State as a Space
Rethinking Development Geographies
Mapping an Empire
Legacy of Scientific Internationalism
Postcolonial Approaches to Communication
Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon
Development, Territories, and People
Modern Cartography
Decolonizing the Map
American Empire
The Geopolitical Imagination and the Enframing of Development Theory
Mapping the Cold War
Postcolonial geographies
Development Politics and the Cold War
Writing the History of Development
Encountering Development
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |