Maps for Making Change Kicks Off, and You Can Get Involved!

Where do you find an activist protesting against the displacement of and violence towards adivasis in Chattisgarh, a painter and a Bangalore techie all in the same room and all working towards the same goal? This is precisely what will happen on 3 December at the India Islamic Cultural Centre on Delhi's Lodhi Road, where Maps for Making Change kicks off. A joint initiative by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore and the Tactical Tech Collective in Bangalore and the UK, Maps for Making Change is a two month project that seeks to explore the potential of digital mapping for social change specifically in the Indian context. For the first time, activists and supporters of movements and campaigns working for progressive social change in the country will get the opportunity to collectively debate and explore in detail the potential of digital mapping as a tool to support their work.

That the project addresses a real-felt need was clear from the overwhelming response to the Call for Applications. In the short span of only a few weeks, the organisers received seventy high quality and detailed applications from individuals working with groups and organisations that seek to further social change across the country. As only twenty five spaces were available, it was a difficult job to select people who met the criteria of the event while ensuring a balance of expertise, topics and experience across different parts of the country

The final list of participants reflects the diversity of India's struggles. It includes grassroots activists, NGO workers, artists and researchers, and a dizzying array of issues: from fighting for clean rivers and people's rights to livelihoods in the Himalaya, over unearthing the socio-economic aspects and consequences of the construction of Bangalore's Metro, to monitoring the national implementation of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005); from mobilising slum dwellers to critically engage with Mumbai's new Development Plan, over bringing attention to human rights violations in Kashmir, to bringing into focus land where internally displaced people can be resettled in the North East. And these are just a few examples!

The challenges in front of the participants are not to be taken lightly. How many people can one really reach through a map? Who are the audiences one addresses, and because of the medium, automatically excludes? And what are the ways in which we can make digital maps really our own, integrating them in the wide range of wonderfully creative methods of mobilising that social movements in India have used for centuries, and ensuring that these time-tested methods are in turn reflected in the maps? All of these questions and more are sure to be raised, and will likely not be easily revolved. What this project provides in the course of its three workshops and the time in between to reflect, develop ideas, and start creating maps to implement them, is the space to start finding answers.

In this first workshop in a series of three, participants will think through the potential of mapping in the context of a project that they have suggested in their application and the preparations they need to make to make these ideas a reality. But Maps for Making Change is not restricted to those who are actually present in the workshops. Every one can get involved! The Maps for Making Change email list (http://groups.google.co.in/group/maps-for-making-change) is an open space for anyone to join the debate on how maps can be used to further progressive social change in the country. When the wiki is up and running in a few days time (maps4change.cis-india.org), it will allow you to see the work of participants as it develops, but will also be a resource on mapping for social change as it evolves. And if you want to get a sense of what is going on in the workshops as they unfold, that is possible too: we will be tweeting on Twitter, using the hash tag #maps4change.

We'll be there on 3^rd December – on Twitter as well as at Lodhi Road – from 9.30 onwards. Hope you will join us on the journey.

For more info, please contact Anja Kovacs, Centre for Internet and Society, at (0)9611747212, or Kate Morioka, Tactical Tech, at (0)9945348420.