Metageography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metageography can refer to:

  • the idea that mapping the world as a whole is always subjective and never objective;
  • the core concept of Martin W. Lewis' and Kären E. Wigen's 1997 published postmodern work The myth of continents : a critique of metageography.[1] which analyzes meta geographical constructs such as "East", "West", "Europe", "Asia", "North" or "South";
"Lewis and Wigen's concern is metageography, which they define as "the set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world" [...]. Geographies are thus much more than just the ways in which societies are stretched across the earth's surface. They also include the contested, arbitrary, power-laden, and often inconsistent ways in which those structures are represented epistemologically."[2]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lewis, Martin W.; Kären E. Wigen (1997). The Myth of Continents: a Critique of Metageography. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 35. ISBN 0-520-20742-4, ISBN 0-520-20743-2. 
  2. ^ Book review by Barney Warf, African Studies Center