Mapping the unmappable in indigenous digital cartographies

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dc.contributor.authorBecker, Amy
dc.contributor.supervisorThom, Brian David
dc.date.accessioned2018-05-01T15:49:11Z
dc.date.copyright2018en_US
dc.date.issued2018-05-01
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Anthropologyen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis draws on a community-engaged digital-mapping project with the Vancouver Island Coast Salish community of the Stz’uminus First Nation. In this paper, I discuss the ways in which conventional cartographic representations of Indigenous peoples are laden with methodological and visual assumptions that position Indigenous peoples’ perspectives, stories, and experiences within test-, proof-, and boundary-driven legal and Eurocentric contexts. In contrast, I frame this project’s methodology and digital mapping tools as an effort to map a depth of place, the emotional, spiritual, experiential, and kin-based cultural context that is routinely glossed over in conventional mapping practices. I argue elders’ place-based stories, when recorded on video and embedded in a digital map, produce a space for the “unmappable,” that which cannot, or will not, be expressed within the constructs of a static two-dimensional map. This thesis also describes a refusal to steep maps too deeply in cultural context for a public audience. I detail the conversations that emerged in response to a set of deeply spiritual, cultural, and personal stories to mark how the presence of Coast Salish law, customs, power structures, varying intra-community perspectives, and refusal came to bear on the production of “blank space” (interpreted colonially and legally as terra nullius) in this project’s cartographic representation. Finally, I conclude that Coast Salish sharing customs are embedded within networks of Coast Salish customary legal traditions, which fundamentally affects tensions that arise between storytelling and digital mapping technologies, between academic and community accountabilities, and between collective and individual consent.en_US
dc.description.embargo2019-10-13
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/9326
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectCoast Salishen_US
dc.subjectCommunity-Based Researchen_US
dc.subjectCommunity-Based Research Ethicsen_US
dc.subjectCollective Consenten_US
dc.subjectCybercartographyen_US
dc.subjectDigital Mappingen_US
dc.subjectDigital Videoen_US
dc.subjectEthnographic Refusalen_US
dc.subjectGISen_US
dc.subjectGoogle Mapsen_US
dc.subjectIndigenous Cartographiesen_US
dc.subjectIndividual Consenten_US
dc.subjectStory Mapsen_US
dc.subjectTraditional Knowledgeen_US
dc.subjectterra nulliusen_US
dc.subjectCommunity-Engaged Researchen_US
dc.titleMapping the unmappable in indigenous digital cartographiesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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