Africa grew darker on the map as exploration increased, not less.

Evidence

In Heart of Darkness, Africa is, for Marlowe, no longer the blank space on the map which had intrigued him as a boy. The blank spaces were becoming filled “with rivers and lakes and names.” But “it had become a place of darkness” (Conrad, 1983:33). The increasing darkness of Africa is proportional to the growth of exploration and colonization rather than the reverse, because the perpetuation and entrenchment of the idea of Africa was integral to the processes of colonial control. So Africa is an invention of the West. This is something we all know. But it is not just a political invention of the Berlin conference of 1884-5. It is an invention of the European imagination, a defining trope of the relentless binarism of imperial discourse. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3388 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Africa’s mythic darkness grew with exploration, not before it — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3388; The idea of Africa was invented by Europe as its unknown Other.

Broader Connections

• Africa’s mythic darkness grew with exploration, not before it #corroborates (0.98) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3388