Maptivism - Maps for Maps for Activism, Transparency and Engagement

The amazing possibilities for this are endless!!

'Mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice.' - The Economist, 4 June 2009

Sourced from crisscrossed [adj. marked with crossing lines; resembling or forming a network]

'Digital maps have brought three major changes.

1. Digital maps, in contrast to paper maps, can be combined with all kinds of data even in real time.

2. Nowadays, everybody can access huge data from the public domain and combine these with maps.

3. Citizen maps are created through voluntarily worldwide effort and participation, are freely available and offer new ways for transparency. '


See also:

The Economist, 4 June 2009

'Mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice. Whether it is to promote health, safety, fair politics or a cleaner environment, foundations, non-profit groups and individuals around the world are finding that maps can help them make their case far more intuitively and effectively than speeches, policy papers or press releases.

'All this has made it much easier to create maps that explain—at a glance—something that might otherwise require pages of tables or verbiage...

The Food Trust, a campaign group based in Philadelphia, used maps as part of its fight to reduce diet-related disease and malnutrition in urban parts of America.

“I remember the first supermarket-commission meeting,” says Jennifer Kozlowski, special assistant for the environment to David Paterson, the governor of New York. “Some of the maps in the report mapped obesity-related deaths and access to produce markets. It was as clear as day that something needed to be done.” In January Mr Paterson announced the Healthy Food/Healthy Communities Initiative, including $10m in grants and loans for supermarket projects in under-served communities...

“We don’t just want to be about mapping,” says John Kim of Healthy City. “Maps don’t change the world—but people who use maps do.”'


Tactical Technology Collective - Maps for Advocacy

'The Darfur Project undertaken by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) where mapping was used to expose a humanitarian crisis in Sudan is a prime example. Combining mapping and rich content, witness testimonies, satellite imagery, data and other information placed on a Google Earth map, the USHMM raised awareness of the reality of incidents in the Sudanese region...

Recognising the power of maps, we have published a booklet - Maps for Advocacy - which is an introduction to Geographical Mapping Techniques. The booklet is an effective guide to using maps in advocacy. The mapping process for advocacy is explained vividly through case studies, descriptions of procedures and methods, a review of data sources as well as a glossary of mapping terminology. Scattered through the booklet are links to websites which afford a glance at a few prolific mapping efforts.

Hosting a map on your website can now become a reality as the guide takes the reader through the specifics of the process. Examples of valuable data sources like youtube, facebook, flickr, socialight etc have been cited along with a brief outline of their mapping features.

The fold-out offers an illustrative sketch of the inside story while the fold-in lists a swift and easy method to create a map.'