Mapping for Change: A Critical Examination of the Social Justice Impact of Participatory Mapping

Participatory mapping is a process that supports local stakeholders to create maps. These maps are used to communicate a community's knowledge, relationship and experiences of a place. The practice of participatory mapping recognizes that community members are the best source of knowledge about the historical, contemporary and cultural use of their lands and how changes to these lands impact their livelihoods. Participatory mapping is a widely embraced practice used throughout the world by a broad range of actors, including researchers, government and community development practitioners. Over the past 40 years, it has become a vibrant area of practice, a well-used research method and is increasingly seen as an area of interdisciplinary study in its own right. To date, research that critically examines the benefits of participatory mapping has been anecdotal, short-term or concurrent with the mapping project. Beyond the immediate project activities and outcomes, little is known about the long-term social justice impacts, as well as the sustainability of projects and their unanticipated outcomes. We propose to examine the social justice impacts of participatory mapping to better understand how its practice can create lasting changes in addressing inequity, overcoming structural barriers and contributing to individual rights and collective good.

UBC