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"Clean out of the map": Knowing and doubting space at India's high imperial frontiers.

cam.issuedOnline2017-01-23
dc.contributor.authorSimpson, Thomas
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-20T12:03:56Z
dc.date.available2018-09-20T12:03:56Z
dc.date.issued2017-03-01
dc.description.abstractDuring the second half of the nineteenth century, land frontiers became areas of unique significance for surveyors in colonial India. These regions were understood to provide the most stringent tests for the men, instruments, and techniques that collectively constituted spatial data and representations. In many instances, however, the severity of the challenges that India's frontiers afforded stretched practices in the field and in the survey office beyond breaking point. Far from producing supposedly unequivocal maps, many involved in frontier surveying acknowledged that their work was problematic, partial, and prone to contrary readings. They increasingly came to construe frontiers as spaces that exceeded scientific understanding, and resorted to descriptions that emphasized fantastical and disorienting embodied experiences. Through examining the many crises and multiple agents of frontier mapping in British India, this article argues that colonial surveying and its outputs were less assured and more convoluted than previous histories have acknowledged.
dc.identifier.doi10.17863/CAM.27828
dc.identifier.eissn1753-8564
dc.identifier.issn0073-2753
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/280457
dc.languageeng
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherSAGE Publications
dc.publisher.urlhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0073275316686580
dc.subjectCartography
dc.subjectIndia
dc.subjectcolonialism
dc.subjectfrontiers
dc.subjectgeography
dc.subjectspace
dc.subjectsurveying
dc.title"Clean out of the map": Knowing and doubting space at India's high imperial frontiers.
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2016-11-30
prism.endingPage36
prism.issueIdentifier1
prism.publicationDate2017
prism.publicationNameHistory of Science: review of literature and research
prism.startingPage3
prism.volume55
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate2017-03-01
rioxxterms.licenseref.urihttp://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
rioxxterms.versionAM
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1177/0073275316686580

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