Maps can construct territory rather than merely represent it

Evidence

In terms of most communication theories and common sense, a map is a scientific abstraction of reality. A map merely represents something which already exists objectively ‘there.’ In the history I have described, this relationship was reversed. A map anticipated spatial reality, not vice versa. In other words, a map was a model for, rather than a model of, what it purported to represent. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 661

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the calibration vs. adoption theme in the Law Merchant chapters — institutions/norms constructing reality rather than encoding it. — connects to: The map now precedes and engenders the territory, not the reverse — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 6; The Borges map fable now expresses only second-order simulacra — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 5; Reality’s coherence depends on a reserve of un-mapped imaginary territory — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 403 (+7 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the map as a technology of sovereignty — how representations create the things they claim to describe, from colonial cartography to modern GIS.

Related

• Maps can precede and shape territorial reality rather than merely reflect it. (similarity 0.89)
• The map now precedes and engenders the territory, not the reverse (similarity 0.88)
• Reality’s coherence depends on a reserve of un-mapped imaginary territory (similarity 0.84)
• AR experiences produce a felt separation between map and territory, not confusion. (similarity 0.82)
• The Borges map fable now expresses only second-order simulacra (similarity 0.82)
• Maps transformed village-centered sacred space into abstract conquerable space (similarity 0.82)
• The same map technology can serve either subversive or centralizing political ends (similarity 0.81)
• The logic of mapping the world is structurally inexhaustible expansion (similarity 0.81)
• Precolonial Thai maps encoded cosmology and locality, not abstract territory (similarity 0.78)
• Applied mathematics selects maps that fit physical facts (similarity 0.78)
• Map and census mutually constitute each other to bound identities territorially. (similarity 0.78)
• Mapmaking is a fundamental instrument of imperial and surveillance power. (similarity 0.78)