Story Maps & the Power of Coyote Space
A StoryMap Workshop for UCLA AfAm 188
Mapping as a Relational Practice
This workshop introduces the technical aspects of importing, overlaying, and presenting data in Esri StoryMaps while drawing from themes in critical cartography, critical data studies and indigenous critical theory. Refer to the Visual Guide , Story Board , and Materials Folder to build your own version of this StoryMap.
Maps are power. They are not neutral or objective. They embody ideologies and each map only represents a very specific viewpoint. Maps are tools to set yourself in relationship with other people, the world, and even the cosmos. The same is true of data. Data is alive and informed by specific histories, ideologies, and the political, social and economic infrastructures that create it. Just like there can be data facts there can be data fictions.
Crime Mapping & Policing
Mapping tools and data methods such as geosurveillance and predictive policing are being used to uphold the carceral state. However, these same tools can be flipped and used as counter maps or counter data actions .
Coyote Space
“Creating a cartography of coyote space is an act of resistance. Coyote space is about making visible what others cannot, or choose not, to see. Arbitrary political boundaries become meaningless.”
Cindi Alvitre, Gabrieleno-Tongva, LAtitudes: An Angelos Atlas , p. 45
Create a Map Tour
Map Tours are good for highlighting particular locations in a specific sequence. Create a Map Tour highlighting the original revolt and the locations of a few present day murals. See Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape of Los Angeles for the story map that inspired this segment.
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1
October 25, 1785 Uprising
Image from UCLA’s Design Media Arts Department as part of a project called “Whoseland” .
2
Conoce Tus Raices (2009)
A 60‘ x 20‘ mural at the Ramona Gardens Recreation Center in East Los Angeles by Raul González, Ricardo Estrada, and Joséph “Nuke” Montalvo.
3
"We decided to honor the native people and women that empower us -- that lineage of strong and brave women who create change in their communities," said Ceja. "Toypurina was that for Tongva people here in the L.A. basin."
Express Map: Toypurina’s Legacy
Example of a floating Express Map
Alternatively, an express map could also be used to show Toypurina’s legacy. In general Express Maps are good for showing routes, sequence of events, and highlight locations. They also have the additional drawing tools which make it easy to draw points, arrows, and polygons to emphasize certain geographic features.
Early Los Angeles Land Surveys
Yellow polygons represent Spanish and Mexican land grants (Ranchos) and blue polygons represent early Public Land Survey Systems.
"This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again."
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Click on each polygon to view the original land surveys. Zoom in to see the names of each Rancho.
Can you find the land granted to Antonio María Lugo?
(Hint: It's South of the original City Lands of Los Angeles)
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Time, Space, & Memory
Maps have the ability to manipulate space and time. Given Cindi Alvitre's coyote space quote. What would it mean to group arrests by closest Tongva village rather than LA Neighborhood? To overlay them?
2016 LAPD Arrests - Coyote Space Version
