The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: LElumalai Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_C Date:31/3/09
Time:21:45:52 Filepath://ppdys1108/BlackwellCup/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-
9781405132879/appln/3B2/revises/9781405132879_4_C.3d

C

cadastral mapping A system ofsurveying

and recording the boundaries, structures

and salient features of land parcels in order

to confirm ownership, support the buying

and selling of land, promote the assessment

and taxation of landedproperty, and delin-

eate the territorial privileges of tenants and

others assigned limitedrights. In addition to

its traditional role in the commodification

of land, a modern multi-purpose cadastre

provides an efficient framework forurban

and regional planning, land-use regulation,

and the management of publicly and privately

ownedinfrastructuresuch as sewers and

distribution pipelines for water and natural

gas (National Research Council Panel on a

Multipurpose Cadastre, 1983). Where data-

sharing arrangements and a common plane-

coordinate system permit, a geographic

information system can readily integrate

land-record data with street-address informa-

tion, terrain data,censusresults, and environ-

mental and natural-hazardsdata, including

flood-zone boundaries.

Allied with notions of private property,

cadastralmaps are among the oldest carto-

graphic forms (seecartography, history of),

in use at least as early as 2300bce,whenthe

Babylonians described land boundaries and

structures on clay tablets (Kain and Baigent,

1992, p. 1). The Egyptians and the Greeks were

less inclined to map property surveys than the

Romans, whoused maps to taxprivate holdings

and differentiate them from state lands. The

collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth cen-

turyadtemporarily ended property mapping in

Europe, but Renaissancecapitalismrevived

themapasa managementtoolforprivate estates

and precipitated the development of intricate

state cadastres during the enlightenment.

Cadastral mapping was essential to European

colonization of the New World, where land

grants and orderly settlement depended on

map-based land registration (seecolonialism).

Cadastral mapping has an important role

in thethird world, where comprehensive

land-record systems can promote land reform

by validating traditional holdings, minimizing

boundary disputes, promotingconservation

ofnatural resources, and reducing land frag-

mentation, which can undermine agricultural

productivity. However promising, cadastral

reform easily fails if poorly planned or not

fully implemented (Ballantyne, Bristow et al.,

2000).

In the more developed world, online cadas-

tres have heightened the innate conflict between

personal privacy and open access to public

records (Monmonier, 2003). Public access to

cadastral information is a fundamental right

in the USA and other countries in which local

officials base evaluations of taxable real prop-

erty on the parcel descriptions and sale prices

of nearby or similar properties. Without

access, citizens cannot judge the fairness of

their assessments and present an informed

challenge to an inequitable evaluation. By

making transaction data far more readily

available, theinternethas undermined the

expectation of privacy among buyers reluctant

to disclose their purchase price. Even so, bene-

fits clearly trump injuries insofar as ready

disclosure promotes a more knowledgeable

real-property market and arguably fairer tax

assessments. mm

Suggested reading

Jeffres (2003); Kain and Baigent (1992).

camp ‘The hidden matrix. .. of the political

space in which we are living’ (Agamben, 1998,

p. 166). Agamben’s controversial thesis

focuses on the juridico-political structure (or

nomos) that produced the concentration

camp. These camps were introduced by

European colonial regimes in Cuba and South

Africa at the close of the nineteenth century,

but Agamben is most interested in those estab-

lished by the Nazis during the Second World

War. Unlike many writers, Agamben does not

see these as aberrations from the project of

modernity– paroxysmal spaces – but, rather,

asparadigmaticspaces. What took place in

them was made possible, so Agamben claims,

because the camps were materializations of

the space of exception (seeexception, space

of) in which the state withdrew legal protec-

tions from particular groups of people (Jews,

gays and Romanies among them). By this

means, millions of victims offascismcould be

reduced tobare life(cf. Agamben, 1999).

But the camp is neither peculiar to fascism

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 57 31.3.2009 9:45pm