Stories and Maps: Postmodernism and Professional Communication

Mapping relies on perspective, even though mapmakers often make it seem that they have conquered that particular problem. There is always something missing from a map. In fact, maps can only show a small fragment of the phenonmena they purport to represent.

In deconstructionist terms, the map does not exhaust the meaning of what was mapped. In turn, what the map means cannot be isolated to the phenomena: There is always representational excess, slippage.

This mismatch is a necessary function of meaning making in culture, so it cannot—should not—be escaped.

The particular mappings I develop in this hypertext are, of course, partial and incomplete. I have left out numerous important things, only some of which I'm currently conscious of:

• feminist readings of mapping
• scientific discussions of visual cognition
• a large number of student writings that helped me arrive at the point where I could write this piece
• postcolonialist theories
• race
• class (except to contrast symbolic-analytic with other service work)
• day-to-day pressures under which mapmakers work
• and much, much more

To take only one of these examples, the lack of a feminist perspective on mapping avoids the issue of how gendered maps can be, and what a feminist mapping might look like. Indeed, the fact that I don't raise the issue acts to naturalize my own gender as the "neutral" reading.

Raising these points doesn't solve them.