Mapping Israel, mapping Palestine : how occupied landscapes shape scientific knowledge / Jess Bier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bier, Jess, 1980- author.

Series:

Inside technology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cartography--Political aspects--Israel.

Cartography.

Cartography--Political aspects--West Bank.

Cartography--Political aspects--Gaza Strip.

Land settlement--West Bank--Maps.

Land settlement.

National security--Israel--Maps.

National security.

Arab-Israeli conflict--Influence.

Arab-Israeli conflict.

Map reading.

Israel.

West Bank.

Gaza Strip.

Genre:

Maps.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 316 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, maps (some color).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Maps are widely believed to be objective, and data-rich computer-made maps are iconic examples of digital knowledge. It is often claimed that digital maps, and rational boundaries, can solve political conflict. But Jess Bier challenges the view that digital maps are universal and value-free. She examines the ways that maps are made in Palestine and Israel to show how social and political landscapes shape the practice of science and technology. How can two scientific cartographers look at the same geographic feature and see fundamentally different things? In part, Bier argues, because knowledge about the Israeli military occupation is shaped by the occupation itself. Ongoing injustices --including checkpoints, roadblocks, and summary arrests - mean that Palestinian and Israeli cartographers have different experiences of the landscape. Palestinian forms of empirical knowledge, including maps, continue to be discounted. Bier examines three representative cases of population, governance, and urban maps. She analyzes Israeli population maps from 1967 to 1995, when Palestinian areas were left blank; Palestinian state maps of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which were influenced by Israeli raids on Palestinian offices and the legacy of British colonial maps; and urban maps after the Second Intifada, which show how segregated observers produce dramatically different maps of the same area. The geographic production of knowledge, including what and who are considered scientifically legitimate, can change across space and time.

Contents:

1 Where Cartographies Collide 1

2 The Materiality of Theory 35

3 Removing Borders, Erasing Palestinians: Israeli Population Maps after 1967 81

4 The Colonizer in the Computer: Stasis and International Control in PA Maps 113

5 Validating Segregated Observers: Mapping West Bank Settlements from Without and Within 155

6 The Geographic Production of Knowledge 205.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262339957

0262339951

OCLC:

992436731

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.