Writing the “New Geography”: Cartographic Discourse and Colonial Governmentality in William Petty’s The Political Anatomy of Ireland (1672)

Within the context of historical geography, William Petty (1623-87) is almost exclusively known for his mapmaking activities as the Director of the Down Survey (1654-6) and is less well known for his theories on political economy, populations and productivity. While Petty’s achievements have been historically examined within various disciplinary contexts, this interdisciplinary paper seeks to link two key elements of his career (mapmaking and political writings) and argues that his experiences in Ireland largely shaped the trajectory of what he later termed as “political arithmetic.” In offering a re-appraisal of William Petty’s “cartographic discourse” The Political Anatomy of Ireland (1672), this paper links the mapping of the forfeited lands of Catholic Ireland, the development of a nascent form of colonial geopolitics and governmentality, the gendering of a political anatomy, to the emergence of “political arithmetic” as a new instrument of state. The paper is primarily concerned with cartographic discourse of the “new geography” of late seventeenth-century Ireland, and explores the implications of re-reading Petty’s political writings on Ireland. It extends observations by Patricia Coughlan (1990), Hugh Goodacre (2008, 2009), Ted McCormick (2010) in terms of highlighting the colonial context of Petty’s work, and views Petty’s Political Anatomy as a nascent form of colonial governmentality specifically concerned with securing and regulating the Irish “colony” through the management of the mobility and conduct of its population. In opening up the connections between Petty’s scientific training in continental Europe, his mapping experiences in Ireland, and his development of “political arithmetic”, this paper offers an alternative genealogy of the history of political economy that is disruptive in highlighting its colonialist “origins” by re-evaluating Petty’s cartographic discourse on Ireland.