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Using Burmese Sketches to Draw British Maps: Forms and Limits of a Geographic Encounter (Late 19th – Early 20th Century)

Sun, March 19, 8:30 to 10:30am, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, City Hall

Abstract

Maps usually appear as instruments of domination and geography as an imperial science. During the British colonial period, as Burma was part of the Raj (until 1937), the institution in charge of its mapping was the Survey of India. Topographical maps were drawn to represent portions of space, reduced on a given scale. They were a discourse saying something about the mental representations of their authors and mediating these representations in visual form. What kind of information did the cartographers usually represent, how did they proceed to get it and what did it say from their geographical thought?

Looking at the scientific practices on the ground help us understand the complex process of map-making through the importance of observation and measure, but also the constraints that the British had to face – lack of men, of money and technical instruments .

Map-making is also a way of studying the colonial encounter. In a country unknown to them, the British often asked the local elites, inhabitants or merchants for information about historical borders, roads, or village names. They did not only rely on oral knowledge but also referred to Burmese maps, partly translated into English. These maps, kept in the British collections, as well as the topographical maps drawn by the Survey of India, are the sources of this discussion on the common opposition between “traditional knowledge” and “modern science” and on whether contrasting views of the world can give birth to a rich dialectic.

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