A Note on Tone, Terms, and (Not) Naming

I would like to take a moment to discuss some of the strategies and language that you will encounter throughout the rest of this document. First, in recognizing the tension between disciplining and accessibility that weaves in and out of the following chapters, I have worked toward writing this document in such a way that it is inviting to individuals with varying degrees of interests and experience with mapmaking. For a dissertation that is about maps, which are typically devices to help locate us, I uphold the tradition of critical considerations of maps and mappings by inviting us to get lost. Getting lost means finding dead ends, uncovering both direct and winding paths from point A to B, experiencing the dissonance of wondering whether that path you are on is familiar and repeated, feeling disoriented when the place you were trying to get to is not there or does not look like it did the last time you saw it. That is, there are many paths you might find yourself along in this document. Depending on your personal skillsets and interests, some may feel too obvious

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while others might seem too convoluted. I invite you to find the one that best suits you while appreciating the options that others have available to them.

There are a few terms that I would like to orient to before embarking. First is a term that was appeared briefly already: “participatory mapping leader” or PML. This will be used to refer to the individual who identifies as the person who oversees the map production portion of the participatory mapping project. The role of a PLM is enabled by their relationship to a “community partner(s)” who are members of the public with which the PML has a project-based collaborative commitment. Put another way, PMLs are the methodological “experts” of the project while their community partners are the experiential experts. The quotations around “experts” here is not accidental, as the following chapters will muddle the division between expert and novice. While the researcher/community dichotomy, and dichotomies in general, have been the subject of critique, I engage throughout the document as a shorthand reference. This is not to indicate that researchers or methodological experts do not occupy the communities in which they are working or to imply that underserved communities require the support of “outsiders.”

Additionally, the language surrounding “community” in these contexts is troubled and imprecise. The term often implies that something is already present and that that something is rooted in place. However, community is refined, dissolved, and solidified continually.

Mapping can be a catalyst in this process. But, as was articulated in early PPGIS arguments, to include also means to exclude (Elwood 2006). In the growing sub-discipline of Community Geography, my authors and I grapple with the tensions of striving to co-produce scholarship in a way that improves lives (Shannon et al. 2020). But (to provide a recent example) what does this mean in the context of Michigan’s ultra-conservative

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citizens with machine guns protesting on the steps of the courthouse steps chanting for their government to re-open the economy during a global pandemic? To work around these corners, participatory work, particularly for mapping efforts, has often centered on the

“marginalized communities” (Craig, Harris, Weiner 2002). It is important, however, that these communities are not simply placed with this qualifier without also holding accountable those that have allowed this marginalization to take place. Here I reference both interpersonal and institutional negotiations within systems of both privilege and oppression.

Accountability must also be present in our citational practices. In the discipline of geography, Carrie Mott and Daniel Cockayne call for an informed and mindful practice, where the individual citing is aware of how citations are a “tool of reification of, or resistance to, unethical hierarchies of knowledge (Mott and Cockayne 2017, 996). I am a cartographer and I take on traditional conceptualization and approaches to cartographic efficacy. The professionalized discipline of cartography (both traditional and critical veins) has been and continues to be dominated by white men (Ahmed 2014). While my work is situated at the intersection of the institution of cartography and the institution of white men, it is not because I am aiming to uphold these structures (though one might surmise this if performing a citation analysis on the references of this document). Rather, I am cataloging the instances of power and privilege that are both indirectly and directly impacting the ways that collaborative mappers can(not) participate.

I also recognize my position as a young woman and a yet to be conferred PhD. As has been made clear to me through interactions at geography and cartography conferences, I must carry the “burden of proof” that I both understand the disciplinary lineage within

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which I am situated to prevent white men attempting to correct my assumed miscalculated argument explaining how I have missed a critical part of this theory or this person’s contributions. Therefore, I cite white men to make absolutely clear the pervasiveness of the problems I work to expose.

I outline these choices because, in particular moments, the decision/need to cite white men creates a great amount of discomfort for me. I am thinking particularly of the work of Denis Wood, which I engaged closely throughout sections of this dissertation. Like J.B.

Harley and Jeremy Crampton, he is a foundational thinker though to be a staple in any bibliography supporting work in critical cartography. Indeed, Wood’s work has been instrumental in moving forward understandings of cartographic power and how that power is exercised. But what does scholarship about power mean when produced from someone who has abused theirs? To be more explicit for those who many not be aware, Wood pleaded guilty in 1996 to molesting a teenage boy whom he was mentoring and invited to live with his family. While Wood claims it was an amicable relationship, he was charged with attempting to intimidate the boy over the phone and by visiting his place of work. and is reported to have sworn the boy, who Wood referred to as “his project, to silence after the first initial instance of abuse (which went on to occur more than 130 times)” (WRAL News 1996). Wood went to prison for 26 months. As mentioned, Wood remains unapologetic of his behavior, claiming he and the boy were in love and leaning on his anarchist parents and upbringing to assert “Laws are horrible things by and large” (Hodson and Luoma 2016) that his father would be “proud” of him for being a felon and that he

“had a good time in prison”. Though fired from his position at North Carolina State University following his arrest, he still is actively celebrated in the cartographic

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community. Denis participated in the 2017 Mappingback: Indigenous Cartographies of Extractive Conflicts at Concordia University in Montréal, has a chapter in the 2019 The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography (2019), has a map included in Ken Field’s book Cartography., and was included in Kollektiv Orangotango+’s publication as well as the book launch of This Is Not an Atlas.

While we are all implicated in the matrix of domination (Collins 2002) and simultaneously experience both benefit and harm by our relationship to privilege, both Wood and the discipline at large have been disinterested in acknowledging the benefit and harm being procured through Wood’s participation in the field. Unquestionably, the anarchism that enables Wood’s articulation and subsequent disregard for power that is celebrated in cartography also enables the action and justification of his multiple instances of sexual abuse.

In an attempt to both call out and hold space for this discomfort directly represent it in my writing I will engage in a practice of citing Wood’s work while separating it from his name. I will refer to Wood using the acronym “uwm” or unnamed white man, using lower case here in an attempt to prevent confusion with universities or organizations that share that acronym. While there are others who stand on the shoulders of Wood that would allow me to circumnavigate citing him (here I think of Geoff King’s (1996) consideration of the relationship between the map and the territory as well as Annette Miae Kim’s (2015) thoughtful application of critical cartographic concepts to the mapping of Ho Chi Minh City). However, up until recently I have been an active subscriber to the willful ignorance around Wood’s actions that is pervasive among geographers. As such, my thinking has been largely impacted by Wood’s work and I feel it only honest to let this document to

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reflect that. This approach to cite but not name introduces many opportunities for critique and I fully expect to read this document years from now and cringe with the thoughts of how I could have done this differently. But for now, this is where I land.

Lastly, in addition to trying to navigate my disciplinary relationship with complicated characters in our mix, I also want to take a moment to speak about the folks whose voices appear in this document. Geography is a very small discipline; cartography is even smaller.

That means that I have taken extra care to represent both the perspectives I am critiquing as well as the experiences those who I interviewed. There are particular moments throughout the text where I name people, reflecting on content that has been shared in public forums, professional meetings, and on social media. Having presented earlier iterations of this work in a variety of settings, I have already experienced the discomfort that emerges when people are asked to stand beside the work that they produce and be accountable to both the impacts that work has and how it is presented. However, accountability is non-negotiable if we hope to envision and achieve a productive, purposeful future for our discipline. A friend once told me, to critique one’s work is to first respect one’s work and that certainly rings true for this dissertation. For those that I have interviewed, IRB requires that I not provide any identifiable information in publications.

As such, if a name is used in relation to a interviewee, it is a pseudonym.