Colonial management required objectifying territories through maps and data-gathering surveys.

Evidence

Following the “discovery” of the Americas, a global network for the flow of goods and information began to take shape, a network whose infrastructure continues to be visible today and whose development was part and parcel of the growth of Western science and technology. Francis Bacon, for instance, made an explicit connection between long-distance travel (that is, colonial expansion and the knowledge transfers it unleashed) and the growth of various scientific disciplines. Since the colonies could not be managed directly by the metropolis, they had to be objectified through scientific means and represented through emerging forms of records that could travel through time and space and thus conquer complexity. Principal among these new methods of management were two important technologies: maps (representations of the space to be colonized and managed) and surveys (mechanisms to extract data that can be analyzed in order to manage colonized spaces). … But according to Cole Harris, modern maps “conceptualized unfamiliar space in Eurocentric terms, situating it within a culture of vision, measurement, and management.” — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 311

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the data-colonialism thesis being built across this book: maps and surveys are historical antecedents of today’s platform data extraction. — connects to: Colonial historiography inherited administrative map distinctions its practice violated; Colonial states invented historical maps fabricating ancient territorial identities. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 663; Administrative maps shaped which colonial events historians recorded — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1096 (+8 more)
• SEED: An essay comparing colonial cartography’s erasures to modern platform network diagrams that render non-users invisible could be a strong piece.

Broader Connections

• Colonial historiography inherited administrative map distinctions its practice violated #expands (0.85)
• Colonial governance required first describing its subjects as a separate object #exemplifies (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 343
• Colonial authority required first making a dispersed population graspable and controllable #expands (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 318
• Rebuilding villages made colonial populations legible as enumerable statistics #expands (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 164
• Colonial states invented historical maps fabricating ancient territorial identities. #exemplifies (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 663
• Colonial administrative decision-making consolidated conflicting local knowledge into packages #expands (0.80)
• Colonial historiography reproduced administrative maps that erased mixed-ethnic encampments #exemplifies (0.80)
• Colonial visibility required assigning serial numbers to people and things. #expands (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 679
• Administrative maps shaped which colonial events historians recorded #expands (0.75) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1096
• Cartographic naming or omitting names legitimizes colonial claims to inhabited land #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1405