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Cartographic ignorance and territorial misrepresentation: the 1967 redrawing of Israel’s national map
Shortly after the June 1967 War, in which Israel seized vast territories beyond its borders, the Israeli government removed Israel’s internationally recognised border (the Green Line) from all official maps of the state. Since then, Israeli maps misrepresent the state’s sovereign territory and the occupied territories as one territorial unit. This paper examines the changing of Israel’s national map by drawing on agnotology, the study of the production of ignorance, and critical settler colonial cartography scholarship. It first demonstrates that the misleading map has detrimentally eroded the legibility of the state's territory for Israelis and impeded their ability to comprehend its geography, to argue that spatial ignorance may substantiate settler colonial endeavours. The paper then turns to charting the “geography of ignorance” that has underwritten the governmental decision to change the map. It argues that as government ministers resorted to dissembling their obliviousness to evade their complicity in an act of cartographic duplicity, they were misguided by their own cartographic misapprehensions. Ignorant of the “logo effect” of national maps, they were unaware that by changing the map they were amalgamating Israel’s colonial expansionism into the spatiality of Israel’s nationhood. Since the deliberate inducing of ignorance is unruly, and the ramifications of such endeavours can easily escape the intentions and understandings of its propagators, agnotology research should account for how those who conspire to hamper the knowledge of others may be led astray by their own ignorance.
Cartographic ignorance and territorial misrepresentation: the 1967 redrawing of Israel’s national map
Shortly after the June 1967 War, in which Israel seized vast territories beyond its borders, the Israeli government removed Israel’s internationally recognised border (the Green Line) from all official maps of the state. Since then, Israeli maps misrepresent the state’s sovereign territory and the occupied territories as one territorial unit. This paper examines the changing of Israel’s national map by drawing on agnotology, the study of the production of ignorance, and critical settler colonial cartography scholarship. It first demonstrates that the misleading map has detrimentally eroded the legibility of the state's territory for Israelis and impeded their ability to comprehend its geography, to argue that spatial ignorance may substantiate settler colonial endeavours. The paper then turns to charting the “geography of ignorance” that has underwritten the governmental decision to change the map. It argues that as government ministers resorted to dissembling their obliviousness to evade their complicity in an act of cartographic duplicity, they were misguided by their own cartographic misapprehensions. Ignorant of the “logo effect” of national maps, they were unaware that by changing the map they were amalgamating Israel’s colonial expansionism into the spatiality of Israel’s nationhood. Since the deliberate inducing of ignorance is unruly, and the ramifications of such endeavours can easily escape the intentions and understandings of its propagators, agnotology research should account for how those who conspire to hamper the knowledge of others may be led astray by their own ignorance.
Cartographic ignorance and territorial misrepresentation: the 1967 redrawing of Israel’s national map
Amir, Merav (author)
2024-02-02
Amir , M 2024 , ' Cartographic ignorance and territorial misrepresentation: the 1967 redrawing of Israel’s national map ' , Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice . https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825241228590
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
critical cartography , settler colonialism , Israel/Palestine , agnotology , Ignorance , national map , territoriality , /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3305 , name=Geography , Planning and Development , /dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/reduced_inequalities , name=SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities , /dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/peace_justice_and_strong_institutions , name=SDG 16 - Peace , Justice and Strong Institutions
DDC:
710
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