Just a First Sketchy Makeshift”
German Travellers and Their Cartographic Encounters in Africa, 1850-1914
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9333388 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Jones (0000-0002-8037-6926, corresponding author), Adam C Jones (0000-0002-1752-157X, corresponding author), Isabel Voigt (0000-0003-0097-8589) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Pages | 9-39 |
| Publication date | 2012-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0361-5413 • E-ISSN: 1558-2744 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1353/hia.2012.0012 |
| OpenAlex | W2059813764 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 35 |
The maps of Africa produced in Europe on the eve of colonial partition and in the early decades of colonial rule purported to represent in a scientific manner what European explorers had “discovered.” Yet in reality they derived to a significant extent – albeit indirectly – from the spatial knowledge of Africans whom these explorers encountered. Whilst we do not possess many sources produced by the Africans themselves, it is possible to read the European accounts as potential depositories of African spatial knowledge and to consider how this knowledge may have been filtered in the process of cartographic production. Taking the German travellers and the important work of August Petermann in Gotha (in the period 1854-1878) as an illustration, the article analyses the difficulties a European faced when attempting to grasp Africa in spatial terms, the motivations and importance of African “informants,” and the transformation of “cartographic encounters” into maps. It also examines how some Africans responded to the growing market for geographical knowledge
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Ethnology · Geography · German · Partition (number theory · Period (music · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · History
Forests of gold
Das Wissen von der ganzen Welt
Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa
Imperial Eyes
German sources for West African history, 1599-1669
Movements, Borders, and Identities in Africa
Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa
Hugh Clapperton into the Interior of Africa
“You Have Everything Confused and Mixed Up…!” Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge and Cartography of Africa in the 19th Century
Penser les intermédiaires coloniaux
A False Emptiness
Dark Companions
Acknowledging Knowledge
Taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’
Colonial Space
Cartographic Encounters
What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?”
A Collection of African Art in Seventeenth-Century Germany
From the Best Authorities’
On Mentally Mapping Greater Asante
Impure and Worldly Geography
Dark Companions
The Roots of Ethnicity
A Dream as Frail as Those of Ancient Time
Afrikanische Pioniere
Livingstone's Legacy
Cartographic Encounters
Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies
Encyclopedia of Africa
Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies
Ethnography and a Regional System
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |