MFA DT
Thesis Studio I
Social Module

Critical Cartography: New mapping practices that use cartography’s subjectivity and bias in an explicit fashion to create maps that are non-normative. This is of importace in relationship to both Cartography’s legacy as a political tool of nation-states to assert territory claims and borders. Maps historically were not explicit about their (map maker’s) intentionality but rather hidden under the “mask” of objectivity, science and accuracy [2]. CC is grounded in critical theory in the sense that the techniques used attempt to link geographic knowledge to power and political issues [3]. Also commonly refered to as “Radical Cartography.”

Counter Mapping: Using the mapping process “to contest dominant power structures [in order to] further seemingly progressive goals [1].” This process was originally used in developing countries to promote land rights and resource uses of indigenous peoples but has recently been used in developed countries for practices such as mapping community assets in urban areas. Counter maps are typically used to adovocate for policy change in a “bottom up” manner and/or to “make the invisible visible.” An example of the latter would be a map of the oil infrastructure, corporate leasing of water rights and oil spills in the Gulf Coast; features which are not mapped on normative maps of this region.

Domains Related to Counter Mapping
+ Critical Cartography:

• GIS
• Cartography
• Social Justice
• Narrative
• Social Media
• The influence of & access to technology (Digital Divide)
• Games
• Critical Theory
• Humanitarian Aid
• Mobile & Location Based Services
• Civic Engagement
• Urban Planning
• Non-profits

Organizations + Conferences:

• NACIS
• OpenStreetMap Project & State Of The Map (OSM Conf.)
• Geo NYC
• Beta NYC
• Maptime (NYC)
• Mapping and its Discontents Symposium
• Transportation Planners
• Researchers
• Policy Analysts
• Activists
• Environmentalists
• Academics
• Urbanists & Civic Hackers
• SLAB MIT
• Where Camp
• ESRI Users Conf.
• Visualized Conf.
• FOSS4G & Conf.
• APA
• AAG
• NICAR Conf.
• GIS Stack Exchange
• local / city governments

Precedents:
Companies + Non-Profits

• Stamen Design
• Greeninfo Network
• 596 Acres
• Code For America
• Anti-eviction Mapping project
• Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT)

People to Interview:

• Alyssa Wright
• Nathaniel Kelso
• Mike Migurski
• (someone) from Anti-Eviction Mapping Project SF
• Annette Kim
• Rebecca Solnit
• Dennis Wood
• Chris Wong

What can data from social media tell us about place???

Other Examples

The Data:

Flickr photos containing a
WOE id +
Lat + Lon

Processed into Alpha Shapes

Output

SQL

    --- clean up tweets:  
    DELETE FROM tweets WHERE lat IS NULL
    OR lon IS NULL

    DELETE FROM tweets WHERE lat = ''

    --- get rid of null island:
    DELETE FROM tweets WHERE lat = '0' AND lon = '0'

  

SQL

    --- format the tweet date-time
    ALTER TABLE tweets 
    ADD COLUMN time_cdb timestamp;

    UPDATE tweets 
    SET time_cdb = to_timestamp(
      time_normalized, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'
    )

    --- select a date range:
    SELECT * from tweets_2014_09_04
    WHERE time_cdb 
    BETWEEN '2014-09-04T14:38:00Z' 
    AND '2014-09-04T14:48:00Z'
  

SQL

    --- select Flickr features that 
    --- DO NOT intersect Urban Areas
    SELECT
      n.cartodb_id,
      n.the_geom,
      n.the_geom_webmercator
    FROM
    ne_10m_urban_areas AS n 
    LEFT JOIN
      flickr_shapes_localities AS f ON
      ST_Intersects(n.the_geom, f.the_geom)
    WHERE f.cartodb_id IS NULL