Map of Power

In 2017, Professor Jessica Johnson used a satellite image of Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria in her opening keynote for the Race, Memory, And the Digital Humanities Conference at William & Mary College. This image, a literal map of power, is a useful opening to thinking more clearly about the relationship between power and mapping, particularly in the digital humanities.

1. Many maps were produced by processes of colonial expansion and expropriation and reflect particular colonial-capitalist notions of property ownership, borders and understanding of topography. Maps as power essay here: http://territories.indigenousknowledge.org/exhibit-10.html Maps "set the agenda of what kind of questions can be asked, what kind of answers are 'possible', and equally what kind of questions and answers are 'impossible'".

2. Maps give the (false) impression of completeness and accuracy, like databases, how can this be challenged to show different ways of understanding the land? Indigenous mapping techniques are analysed here: http://territories.indigenousknowledge.org/exhibit-4.html Of particular interest is maps that are tactile rather than purely visual. Is it possible to draw maps which show the gaps and lack of knowledge? How could this be shown in digital maps?

3. How do maps show power relations between people?

4. Cory James Young invites us to think about enslaved people as migrants: https://activisthistory.com/2019/04/15/jim-alias-james-boyd-enslaved-migrant-laborers-in-the-american-north/ -- the forced migration of enslaved people was essential for the expansion of both the United States and capitalism. Fugitivity is also migration, and mobility is closely associated with freedom. How can maps show us how people found their mobile freedom?