Abstract

Mapping is a primary tool used by the State and those responsible for gentrification. The State uses cartography to make its land and labor legible; that which can be (re)defined, divided, and controlled. Mapping also reveals the dilemmas marginalized communities face: remain illegible to the State or make their concerns legible in ways that can negotiate standing with the State (Scott, 1999). These two options are limiting, forcing traditionally marginalized communities to either hide from or fight the State. Similarly, in urban neighborhoods historically burdened by environmental racism and structural disinvestment, communities are often forced either to hide from or fight public investments to resist gentrification, as new mobility and green infrastructure investments tend to put previously redlined neighborhoods “on the map,” subjecting them to a flood of speculative investment, rather than advancing community-rooted health and wealth for long-term residents. In response, researchers have relied on social vulnerability mapping to identify drivers of displacement. While these cartographic tools are necessary to make oppression and vulnerability to displacement legible, they are insufficient to end gentrification. These methods have been employed for over a decade in major urban areas across the globe, and yet gentrification and displacement continues unabated, given the dominance of extractive, exploitative, exclusive capitalism in urban development (Chapple & Zuk, 2016; Easton et al., 2020; Richardson et al., 2020).

To address this outcome gap, this chapter proposes that those fighting gentrification expand their toolbox with methods based on a radical understanding of the cartographic gaze behind maps, and underlying assumptions about power. Instead of seeing like a State, we are called to sense like a sovereign body, as understood by Indigenous geographers (Harjo 2019). The idea of returning to our bodies, our embedded and emplaced lived experiences, and our differences as a source of power is core to epistemologies produced at the center of intersectional struggles (Suarez 2018). While social vulnerability mapping can help identify drivers of precarity and name intersectional oppression, it has generally been ineffective in cultivating community resilience or supporting resistance to gentrification. Radically sovereign approaches to knowledge production are essential in identifying drivers of vitality, recognizing mutually flourishing relationships, and cultivating resilience in the face of displacement pressures. Drawing on a review of existing literature with a novel conceptual framework for regenerative mapping, this chapter provides a set of tools for the researcher to unite with countermapping and more traditional social vulnerability mapping: asset mapping, story mapping, promise mapping, and kinship mapping. We also illustrate the practical application of these tools with a case study of participatory action research against gentrification. We argue that by exercising the power to shift the state of the cartographic gaze to sense like a sovereign body, researchers and community members can enact geographies of radical resilience through acts of resistance and regeneration supported by an expanded set of mapping tools.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract.........................................................................................................................................................2

1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................4

2 Regenerative Mapping for Geographies of Radical Resilience.............................................................5 2.1 Shifting the Cartographic Gaze to Sense like a Sovereign Body ...................................................6 3 Valverde Movement Project: Regenerative Mapping in Action...........................................................8 3.1 Community Asset Mapping.........................................................................................................10 3.2 Story Mapping: Story Lines, Story Circles, and ESRI Story Maps ................................................11 3.3 Promise Mapping........................................................................................................................13 3.4 Kinship Mapping .........................................................................................................................13 4 Discussion: Emergent Outcomes and Actions ....................................................................................14 4.1 Expanded Capacity for Valverde Neighborhood Association .....................................................15 4.2 Reclaiming and Naming Ulibarri Park .........................................................................................15 4.3 Guiding the West Area Plan & Infrastructure Investment..........................................................15 5 Concluding Propositions on Regenerative mapping...........................................................................16 5.1 Emergent, Adaptive Strategy for a Shifting Horizon...................................................................18 5.2 Institutional Infrastructure for Regenerative Mapping ..............................................................18 6 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................20 7 Notes...................................................................................................................................................26