Thus, map making, resource exploitation and the conquering of native land have gone hand in hand since Europeans arrived in this corner of the world. In recent years, however, a grassroots movement has sprouted that is using maps and the map making process to reflect community values and support socially and ecologically sustainable planning. In doing so community mappers are helping to recover indigenous, community-based mapping traditions. Maps and Culture Maps provide unique modes of manipulation and control. They can decide whose worldview and reality count.
Maps are subjective renderings of place and reflect the worldview of the mapmaker.
Since the advent of perspective geometry in the 15th century, followed by the rise of colonialism and the Scientific Revolution, mapmaking in the West has followed a utilitarian, scientific and technical tradition. Cartography soon became an indispensable tool of state and colonial power, while portraying the world with a European bias. In country after country, maps and the associated approach to territory served to overun peasants and indigenous peoples and subjugated their cultures. The features of geography were part of a much larger interconnected mental map that existed in the oral traditions. The world was perceived and experienced through one's history, traditions, and kin, in relationships with the animal and natural resources that one depended upon, and in union with the spirits and ancestors, and religious forces with whom one shared existence.