Amit John Kurien

Description

Mapping for understanding, mapping for change

Maps are ubiquitous products of human imagination that have trickled into our lives. They define and control the way we perceive and think about landscapes and waterscapes. However, it is acknowledged now that maps are products of a reductive way of interpreting the world that both assorts and restricts the realities we see. They are thus replete with the power and politics of the ones who make the map as they cater most to the goals they aspire for. I provide an overview of the purposes and consequences of mapping that we often take for granted. I then engage with the politics of mapping and some of the social issues associated with the deployment of GIS technologies, especially for marginalized groups of people who do not have the power to control the outcomes of these maps and the realities they represent. I propose that one way to think of mapping in democratic circumstances where citizens and local people are stakeholders of the mapping project is to hand the power of mapping to the people at the lowest rung of the political hierarchy, i.e. the marginalized. Academies of learning and communities of action need to pay attention to both facets when thinking about mapping for understanding and change.

Period	23 May 2025
Visiting from	RV University, Bengaluru (India)
Degree of Recognition	International