Gall-Peters projection
It is known that There is always a certain margin of volatility between reality and its representation. A gap that depends on the limits of the human being, on the means used, on the psychological conditions of the observer, on the objectives that one intends to pursue, whether they are expressed or hidden.
Making a map is no exception: It doesn't describe reality, but it tells us about it and, in doing so, lingers on those details that it can and wants to represent.
Even the interactive map through which it is possible to consult the many activities carried out in the world by Hands Outstretched inevitably falls under this logic. It presents an unusual physiognomy, such that it appears crude and cartoonish to our eyes. The proportions of the size and shape we are used to jump and the surfaces of the emerged lands appear deformed: some geographical areas seem oversized and others, conversely, appear shrunk, almost "dehydrated".
Yet such a digital mapping was created starting from a specific mathematical-geometric projection of our planet, known as projection "Gall Peters” or, simply, “Peters Card".
Just like any other map, Peters's is obviously not exact but, unlike all the others, it can be defined as Right.
The Peters projection map present on the Mani Tese website also returns in the activities of Global Citizenship Education carried out by the NGO. In this context, the planisphere conceived in the manner of Peters plays a decisive role both from a scenic point of view and from the argumentative. It is therefore worth observing the reasons that led Mani Tese to the conceptual and, in some ways, also strategic adoption of such a (not only) cartographic perspective of our planet.
Mercator Projection
In the Mercator Projection, a segment of parallel between two meridians always remains the same everywhere, whereas on a three-dimensional spherical format the distance of a segment of parallel between two meridians is variable and, therefore, decreases as the latitude increases. It follows that the ratio between the distance represented graphically and the real distance is out of scale and incongruent.
The Mercator Chart triumphs because, while sacrificing the exact extension of the areas, it respects with great accuracy the shapes of continents and countries, thus provides a coordinate grid that is optimal for nautical orientation. But that's not all. One might argue that all this is not enough to justify its use even in contexts that have nothing to do with the nautical field. Unless we believe that the goal of school education is to prepare a host of future sailors, we do not see why Mercator should stand out, for example, in classrooms of all levels throughout the world.
La secularization of this card will therefore depend on deeper reasons. The coherent development of such an intuition is due, mainly, to the sensitivity and tenacity of Arno Peters, German historian active in the second half of the last century.
He notes that Mercator's cartographic deformation, which privileges certain countries in terms of centrality and size to the detriment of others, has progressively taken root precisely while, with the passing of time, the same countries that appear graphically magnified undertake processes of conquest and exploitation to the detriment of those that, by chance, appear shrunk, isolated and, in some way, in a position of implicit subordination.
The fortune of the Mercator Chart, according to Peters, initially reflects the Eurocentric conception with which “modernity” opens. A caesura in human history in which, moreover, science and technology begin to be instrumental in the spread of an ideology based on the domination of man over other men and, in parallel, of men over nature. Europe places itself, that is, its cultural identity and its needs, at the centre of the world. The geographical image of a centrally located Europe with a South placed at his feet it is fully superimposable on the historical image of an imperialist Europe which, with violence and arrogance, bends to its will the global periphery that delimits it: South America, Africa, Asia and, finally, all those people who, despite being in the “north”, are however ethnic minorities with non-European roots.
As Arno Peters himself explains, in fact, the Eurocentric image has proven to be functional to the exploitation of the "Third World" by the industrialized powers even in the post-colonial era. Since «the struggle to replace the old map turns into a struggle against the ideology of exploitation», Peters thinks the time has come to create a map that can give back to the global South that cartographic dignity which is rightfully his.
Certainly not immune from certain "cultural presumptions", instead of maintaining the Equator in a central position, Mercator chooses to graphically place Europe at the centre of the map. Europe thus becomes the point that cuts the globe in two exact halves, with the inevitable consequence of a lower shift of the Equator.
This choice turns out to be crucial because it contributes to making the distortion of proportions more drastic. It follows that all areas in the southern hemisphere are restricted, while all areas in the northern hemisphere are dilated, even more than they already are due to the isogonic property of the map.
This is the reason why on the one hand Greenland, Canada, United States and Russia, for example, appear to us incorrectly immense, on the other South America, Africa and India they result a lot less extensive than they are.
Mercator map
The Mercator Chart triumphs because, while sacrificing the exact extension of the areas, it respects with great accuracy the shapes of continents and countries, thus provides a coordinate grid that is optimal for nautical orientation. But that's not all. One might argue that all this is not enough to justify its use even in contexts that have nothing to do with the nautical field. Unless we believe that the goal of school education is to prepare a host of future sailors, we do not see why Mercator should stand out, for example, in classrooms of all levels throughout the world.
La secularization of this card will therefore depend on deeper reasons. The coherent development of such an intuition is due, mainly, to the sensitivity and tenacity of Arno Peters, German historian active in the second half of the last century.
He notes that Mercator's cartographic deformation, which privileges certain countries in terms of centrality and size to the detriment of others, has progressively taken root precisely while, with the passing of time, the same countries that appear graphically magnified undertake processes of conquest and exploitation to the detriment of those that, by chance, appear shrunk, isolated and, in some way, in a position of implicit subordination.
The fortune of the Mercator Chart, according to Peters, initially reflects the Eurocentric conception with which “modernity” opens. A caesura in human history in which, moreover, science and technology begin to be instrumental in the spread of an ideology based on the domination of man over other men and, in parallel, of men over nature. Europe places itself, that is, its cultural identity and its needs, at the centre of the world. The geographical image of a centrally located Europe with a South placed at his feet it is fully superimposable on the historical image of an imperialist Europe which, with violence and arrogance, bends to its will the global periphery that delimits it: South America, Africa, Asia and, finally, all those people who, despite being in the “north”, are however ethnic minorities with non-European roots.
As Arno Peters himself explains, in fact, the Eurocentric image has proven to be functional to the exploitation of the "Third World" by the industrialized powers even in the post-colonial era. Since «the struggle to replace the old map turns into a struggle against the ideology of exploitation», Peters thinks the time has come to create a map that can give back to the global South that cartographic dignity which is rightfully his.
In the Peters Charter, as one can easily imagine, theEquator comes to be relocated to the center of the world so that it can finally cut the planet into two equal halves. Secondly, meridians and parallels are reconfigured so that as the latitude increases the surface of the areas remains constant, without expanding. From a geographical point of view, the advantageous characteristics of its projection are many: equidistance; equivalence; faithfulness to the Earth's axis; total representation of the planet without the need for cuts, joints, duplications; homogeneous distribution of the inevitable imperfections; distinctive colors for each continent and country.
The Peters projection map accurately renders the relative proportions of the various continents, respecting their actual sizes and their distance from the Equator. However, it cannot help but distort their shapes. which, in fact, are altered.
Despite this intrinsic difficulty, the Peters' work has a revolutionary scope, not only when provides a new perspective on our world, but above all when brings to light a truth that had been kept quiet until then: from Anaximander to the present day, no geographical map can claim scientific objectivity or ideological neutrality.
A second element of innovation is due to the new paper's ability to denounce the propaganda ambitions hidden behind the old paper.
In the collective imagination there is an irresistible unconscious temptation to believe that the more a State is extended in size, the more important it is and therefore that its expansion in political and economic terms is legitimate, almost physiological. In Mercator's conception, Europe is at the centre and the rest of the world is considered as the extension of its offshoots. Comparing the Mercator map and the Peters projection one we realise how the centrality of certain areas and their relative size are a geographical lie.
The following image may help to understand it with the map overlay: Peters projection areas are in green and Mercator projection areas are in transparency.
From the comparison between the two maps we discover that: Greenland, whose area appeared roughly equivalent to that of Africa, turns out, in reality, to be 14 times smaller; Europe is not bigger than South America since this, with its 17,8 million km² is double that of the Old Continent (9,7 million km²); India, which in Mercator appears much smaller than Scandinavia, turns out to be three times larger; Italy is not at all larger than Somalia but, in comparison, occupies half the space;Brazil alone is as big as the US.
We thus realize that the one who comes out most damaged by the historical predominance of the Mercator Map is, probably, Africa. In the classical projection, Africa appears, at best, of equivalent size compared to those continents and countries that, historically, have made and continue to make the former a basin from which to draw natural resources and slave labor.
Ultimately, in Peters' exegesis, the Mercator's map is nothing but an ideological vehicle aimed at subliminally affirming the alleged superiority of some Nations and thus justifying their supremacy over those less "progressed" realities.. Continents and countries in the southern hemisphere are drastically reduced in relation to the surface area and, moreover, are crushed downwards, almost as if to evoke a certain marginality and subordination.This potentially fuels prejudice and encourages the progressive acceptance of a colonial logic.
In Arno Peters' intentions, therefore, the diffusion of a new paper goes hand in hand with the diffusion of a sensitivity aimed at affirming the equality of all people in access to rights, justice and development opportunities. On the socio-cultural level, that is, the Peters Charter liquidates the geopolitical privilege of certain superpowers and places industrialized countries and developing countries on the same level, setting aside any possible geographical shore that could fuel dichotomies and disparities. The afterthought that emerges from observing the Peters Charter is that, in fact, since there is no single country at the center (i.e. the superpower of the moment), no people can claim exclusivity and importance, but all have equal dignity.
The Value of Gall-Peters Projection in Mani Tese's Development Cooperation and Education Strategies
As one can imagine, the reasons that pushed Mani Tese to acquire Peters' perspective are linked to the transformative potential that it releases. Although his cartographic ambition is still struggling to take off today, also due to the technical inaccuracies that his projection entails, it must be recognized that the lesson that underlies it remains current and, above all, consistent with our vision.
Since its origin, which occurred at the height of the "economic boom" and the "Cold War", Hands Outstretched he immediately understood the need for a change of pace and therefore intended to devote his commitment to justice towards equity, harmony between peoples, the transversal diffusion of rights, the protection of minorities, non-violence, the specific right of all to “not be left behind”, the human and environmental sustainability of economic activities.
This vocation has allowed it to structure its strategic action in function of a Justice that wherever it is promoted and applied (society, economy, environment) is understood first and foremost as tension to theequality: All human beings, regardless of their geographical location, deserve the same opportunities and, above all, they deserve to be put in a position to exercise their autonomy in any field, without having to depend on “deformed” development models imposed from outside or from above.
Cooperating for development means, today more than ever, making substantial the fair and equal model of human coexistence pre-defined by Peters in his planisphere. It also means fighting against the persistence of that same logic of selective justice that wants some peoples in a position of privilege and others in a condition of subordination and minority. It also means countering those macro-economic dynamics that, even today, are compatible with a vision of a two-speed world of Eurocentric memory. Peters exemplifies our rejection of an "ideology of development" that runs on purely economic tracks and that, in continuing to guarantee a (false) prosperity for the use and consumption of the same countries, strongly damages ethnic minorities and impoverished communities on which it unloads the environmental, social and human cost of its own misleading idea of progress.
We therefore believe that the German historian's appeal to consider the world in a new light is not only still valid but even urgent. We cultivate his warning when, in the development cooperation projects we take charge of, precisely in three of the continents in the “South” of the world: We oppose modern slavery trying to prevent that spiral that leads to human enslavement for the purposes of economic profit; Let's spread virtuous practices connected to the food sovereignty thus strengthening the social ties of the communities and laying the foundations for their progressive emancipation from the yoke imposed by the international giants; We denounce the depletion of natural resources of Africans, South Americans and Asians, and the consequent hoarding of their development opportunities; we try to counteract those dynamics of poverty that envelop villages, disintegrate societies and create atomized individuals forced to undertake dangerous migrations with little prospect of survival.
Finally, Peters' perspective is not only something that graphically exemplifies, accompanies or corroborates the development processes that Mani Tese implements in the three continents in which it operates. The charter of Peters is a paradigm from which to start to articulate a change which involves, first of all, our own lifestyles and, more generally, the way in which we "Westerners" perceive the world and act accordingly. In Mani Tese's vision, the belief that there is an essential relationship between development cooperation and development education is structural, such that one activity could not be conceived without the support of the other. For this reason, we have always dedicated ourselves, "this side of the Equator", to awareness-raising activities, campaigns and to Global Citizenship Education (ECG).
THEECG consists in the proposal of learning paths aimed at transmitting transversal skills of active citizenship. Within this line of work, the Peters Charter takes on the dignity of a educational tool unparalleled. In our view, “active” education processes cannot ignore a methodology of an maieutic. The subjects involved are called to undertake participatory and circular paths which, once the most contradictory aspects connected to current events have been problematized, aim to transform the participants into actors of change. The Peters projection planisphere becomes here an instrument of extraordinary effectiveness as it is able to perform two complementary functions in the process of maieutic nature: in “negative”, it allows in fact to implement a perspective reversal of those Eurocentric presumptions that have settled in our consciences and, for this very reason, facilitates at a later stage theactivation of subjects towards the construction of a globalized society in rights, supportive, inclusive, open and sustainable.
At the beginning of each educational-recreational path, the children who participate are invited, after a round of introductions, to sit in a circle on a large world map made with wooden pallets and the leaders who lead the activity ask the children to observe it with particular attention. It is precisely the Peters planisphere. At first glance it seems like a classic planisphere hanging in all Italian classrooms, but little by little some of them begin to notice differences: "Africa is in the center!", "it is too big!", "Greenland is too small on this map!", "the shapes of the continents are elongated!". It is the first stage, that of the "overturning". The planisphere on which they are sitting becomes a key element which, as mentioned, highlights the contradictions related to our perception of the Earth and the distance between this perception and reality. As the activity continues, it is possible to see how the traditional geographical map has really contributed to shape the way we perceive the world in a broad sense: their adolescent imagination is colonized by literary, cinematographic, existential models that are purely Eurocentric or, in any case, "Westernist". In fact, we discover that few young people feel the desire to visit an African country, on the contrary, most of the kids express a desire to travel to North America and would never confuse the United States with Canada or Mexico.
This first phase of perspective reversal is followed by the “discovery” phases e "activation". The children are therefore invited to put aside, for a few hours, their habits, their stereotypes, their certainties. They are asked to consider the world in its globality and regional interdependenceThe imbalances are reproduced on the planisphere in the distribution of food and wealth. Participants travel to discover natural elements, taking note of the fact that the over-exploitation of natural resources violates nature and damages entire populations.
At the end of the cycle, there is a moment in which the children are called to express themselves on the possibilities of transforming negativity starting from the rethinking of certain individual and social behaviors. Thinking about the world as a whole, in Peters's way, essentially means reaching the awareness that every choice we make has an effect, more or less impactful, on a global scale.We realize that our consumption and lifestyles can indirectly support widespread violations of human and environmental rights but, precisely for this reason, they can be rethought and therefore give rise to a qualitative change in conflicts. Through Peters therefore, our paths aim at empowerment, to ensure that on the part of the problem each of us can become part of the solution. We just need to adopt a broader view, generous in perspective and far-sighted in choices.
It must be said that, unfortunately, not many people have yet understood the educational significance of Peters' perspective. Only recently, in an article published in The Guardian, it is reported that in all Boston schools the Mercator chart has been replaced with the Peters chart.