Unraveling the map: Black psychogeographies and other spells for undoing the lasting spatial injustice of colonial cartography
Abstract
In her landmark lecture and essay, “The Master’s Tools...” Audre Lorde asks, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy?” immediately telling us the answer: “It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable.” (1979). In Western pedagogy, many of our maps are limited by the lineage of representational techniques that emerged from the colonization of the Ameri-cas. This begs the question: when we use those same map frameworks, are we unintentionally reinforcing the same social order that has maintained a segregat-ed housing and education system and denied the general public a meaningful stake in development plans? Using three case studies, this position paper argues that the visual tools we use to create cartographic representations also need to change to broaden the perimeters of change in community land use planning processes.
Unraveling the map: Black psychogeographies and other spells for undoing the lasting spatial injustice of colonial cartography
In her landmark lecture and essay, “The Master’s Tools...” Audre Lorde asks, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy?” immediately telling us the answer: “It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable.” (1979). In Western pedagogy, many of our maps are limited by the lineage of representational techniques that emerged from the colonization of the Ameri-cas. This begs the question: when we use those same map frameworks, are we unintentionally reinforcing the same social order that has maintained a segregat-ed housing and education system and denied the general public a meaningful stake in development plans? Using three case studies, this position paper argues that the visual tools we use to create cartographic representations also need to change to broaden the perimeters of change in community land use planning processes.