Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason: Maps, Landscapes, Travelogues in Britain and India

This book explores how the British colonial regime in India constructed a geographical space through visual and material practices, using cultural artefacts such as landscape paintings, travel literature, and cartography to reinforce power relations and assert control. It examines the dominance of cartographic reason in the age of European Enlightenment and how this gaze shaped the representation and imagination of India. The study highlights the production of India as a new geography sourced from Britain's interaction with its rural outskirts and domination in its fringes.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 314 pages
Publication date: 25 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive volume delves into the intricate ways in which the British colonial regime shaped India as a geographical space through visual and material means. It uncovers the strategic utilization of cultural artifacts, including landscape paintings, travel literature, and cartography, as tools to construct artificial spaces that bolstered power dynamics. By examining the primacy of cartographic reason during the European Enlightenment, the author sheds light on the frameworks that shaped aesthetic and scientific modes of representation and imagination.

The author employs a cross-disciplinary approach, scrutinizing this imperial gaze as a visual perspective that bore the tangible imprints of a will to assert dominance, possess, and control. At the core of this study lies the exploration of India's emergence as a new geography, derived from Britain's own interactions with its rural outskirts and dominance in its peripheries.

The book addresses several key themes, including:

The Production of Space: Examines the concept of space production to understand how a colonial geography emerged, leading to the creation of a new place, which eventually became a nation.

Investigation of a Generative Period: Delves into a transformative period in the formation of British India, circa 1750-1850, as a colonial territory, focusing on its representation and reiteration in British maps, landscape paintings, and travel writings.

Bringing Great Britain and British India Together: Unites the two entities on a common plane, not only in terms of physical geographical spaces but also in exploring critical domains through the lens of critics from both spaces.

Understanding the Pictorial Grammar: Analyzes the visual grammar that legitimized the expansive British imperial cartographic gaze as the dominant narrative, marginalizing all other existing local ideas of space and inhabitation.

By reevaluating colonial constructions of modern India, this volume offers valuable insights into the complex processes that shaped the geopolitical landscape of the region. It will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and students of history, geography, and colonial studies.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367505745