We engage in an interdisciplinary approach that integrates insights from radical geography, critical cartography, and social innovation that can help urbanists develop and adopt holistic practices that consider historical legacies, and colonial influences and ensure just futures that are meant to help the advancement of their respective communities.
We engage in an interdisciplinary approach that integrates insights from radical geography, critical cartography, and social innovation that can help urbanists develop and adopt holistic practices that consider historical legacies, and colonial influences and ensure just futures that are meant to help the advancement of their respective communities. We mobilize the aforementioned theoretical frameworks to offer a critical lens that transcends beyond traditional space reading and understanding, to a more embedded approach that explores underlying power structures and dynamics that shapes our worldviews By assuming the very essence of counter-mapping, which strongly criticizes the biased ontology of maps in imposing new territories, conjuring borders where none existed, and homogenizing highly disparate parts inhabited by different communities, we adopt an intimate framework that transcribes the subjectivities and memories of the indigenous communities beyond the static form of contemporary maps. This is by exploring various forms of spatial representations using but not limited to animated maps, interpretive diagrams, caricatures, imageries, and rudimental mappings that are superimposed over actual oral narratives and memories captured from the respective communities. All these are done to help mobilize collective action that co-produces new territories of inclusion and resilience that continuously empower the vulnerable and already marginalized indigenous communities.
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I am an Urbanist and a Ph.D. Researcher at Planning and Development (P&D) Research Unit, KU Leuven, Belgium. I am a Tutorial Fellow at the Department of Spatial Planning and Design, The Technical University of Kenya. I am also a Registered and Practicing Physical Planner in Kenya. My Ph.D. research combines critical mapping and community empowerment that focuses on the nexus between Critical Mapping, Indigenous communities, and Social Innovation/empowerment. The research aims to investigate whether and under which conditions mapping and its agency contribute to empowerment or not. This is done by focusing on three spectrums of Spatial Dynamics, Spatial Representation, and Collective Action. It critically questions the ontology of maps and mapping processes, their authorship, the power dynamics they exert, and what they actually do to the territory. It further explores embedded and alternative cartographic representation and literacy that can be mobilized to capture innovative and intelligent indigenous/localized knowledge systems that are empowering and lead to the socio-political transformation of local communities, against a backdrop of the rapidly urbanizing Coastal Kenya context. The research is anchored on two main theoretical frameworks of Critical Cartography, which offers an analytical framework to critically evaluate maps and mapping processes, and Social Innovation, which provides a robust operational framework that helps engage local communities and relevant stakeholders and set the stage for proactive socio-political transformation.
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Featured and highly rated projects
Mapping Spatialities in and around Mida Creek Area
David
15 Dec 2022
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Re-Writing History Through Cartographic Agency
David
25 June 2022
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Mapping Solidarity Networks in Mida Creek Area
David
13 October 2021
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Don't miss the latest blogs
As i prepared myself for a mini participatory mapping exercise with the village elders in Kisiwani Island, Kilifi, it dawned on me that the more i interact with the community, the more i have to re-learn so much! Read more
During one of my Iterative fieldwork, I encountered this signboard along the Kilifi-Malindi highway. This is just one of the many mushrooming signboards alerting market forces LAND FOR SALE!Read more
