To navigate

A smattering of red dots on a jungle-green canvas—this was my baby, my long-awaited final product. These colored pinpricks represented plantations of pineapple, coca, oil palm and cacao, and I had spent an entire week constructing them. As I entered thousands of data points, my finger muscles memorized the space between Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. Let it be known: Mapmaking is tedious work.

Working as an intern on a project regarding sustainable policies in the Peruvian Amazon, I reevaluated my appreciation of cartography. Our generation takes access to information, including spatial information, entirely for granted. We sometimes forget that there are costs involved with the creation of this information. For every map you use, there was once an unpaid intern with eyes bloodshot from staring at Excel spreadsheets. But the real hero is the guy with Geographic Information Systems skills who can transform these massive sequences of coordinates into a user-friendly representation of the real world. The magic in those tiny red dots, as opposed to indecipherable lists of eight-digit numbers, is that they actually mean something to the average person.

Maps transcend communication barriers. You don’t have to be well educated or fluent in a language to understand information presented in colors and symbols. In 2005, Google revolutionized the way we think about maps. It still blows my mind that I can type in any random address and instantly see it at street level. Enter the proliferation of smart phones and soon there will be few college students who remember having to actually print out MapQuest directions to get somewhere.

There are plenty of ways to obsess over maps. Maps are used as home décor, with globes as a classy option for the distortion-averse. Authors spinning fantasy worlds must provide their readers with detailed maps of their creations (thank goodness I can now visualize the trek from Winterfell to King’s Landing). Active compass-lovers participate in geocaching, adventure racing and other forms of orienteering. Maps are also valuable collectors’ items; historical maps can be worth thousands of dollars. For instance, in 1994 and 1995 an art dealer from Florida stole $60,000 worth of rare maps from the Special Collections in Perkins Library.

For me, maps carry both immense sentimental and practical value. The contours speak of places and people. My fascination with maps began when I showed up for Project WILD, Duke’s pre-orientation backpacking trip. I quickly discovered geography and topography reign supreme. Watches and clothing are optional on the trail, but maps and compass are always close at hand. I came to love the simplicity and self-sufficiency of locating a water source or a suitable campsite with only a ragged old laminated chart as a guide.

I keep the business card from the boarding house where I stayed during my DukeEngage trip. The simple map on the back reminds me of the nearby fruit market and the Kolkatan children who played on the corner. My field notebook from Panama contains an annotated sketch of the indigenous territory of Kuna Yala, casually outlined by a local biologist as he told me about the area’s incredible coral reef diversity.

Geographic awareness gives us a feeling of comfort. Sometimes I think about what Duke’s campus felt like as a freshman. For the first few weeks, Duke consisted of my dorm, the Marketplace, the inside of buses and disconnected pockets of West. Then I walked the ground a few hundred times. I explored, got lost and carved new paths through carefully manicured quads. By sophomore and junior year, I had connected most of the pieces. I discovered the lovely walk through the Duke Gardens between Central and West. From any given location on campus, I can give directions on how to get to LoYo or the Durham Farmer’s Market. Familiarity with my surroundings is how I feel that I am home.

By giving us direction, maps do more than put us at ease. They empower us. Consider what it means to really be lost. For Duke freshmen, it can mean missing lunch with new friends because Blue Express is somewhere out yonder in science yard. In the Peruvian Amazon, lost is the administrative status quo (no disdain intended). How do you create policies that safeguard water resources if you don’t have accurate maps of rivers and watersheds? How do you determine the potential impacts of a new highway if you don’t know what kinds of ecological zones it will disrupt? How do you know where home is if your territory is undefined? These questions linger as I think about the way cartography shapes our modern human experience, from Duke’s campus to the remote jungle. If knowledge is power, then maps are the key to power in an ancient and universally understood form.