Guerrilla Cartography: Promoting Diverse Perspectives and the Expansion of the Cartographic Arts

Abstract

Guerrilla Cartography is an organization that seeks to popularize thematic maps with a variety of styles and perspectives in an accessible and engaging format. Through our projects, we provide examples of diverse narrative viewpoints in map form, allowing readers to expand their ideas of what kinds of stories maps can tell and imagine the stylistic possibilities for visual expression in this medium. Among other activities, we publish crowdsourced atlases with the aim to widely promote the cartographic arts, and have thus far published Food: An Atlas (2013) and Water: An Atlas (2017). Because the maps are collected in published volumes, the atlases build legitimacy for marginal or atypical cartographic voices. We promote accessibility by publishing the atlases both as physical books and as free, downloadable PDF documents on our website: guerrillacartography.org. Each map, created by a different group on a different topic, is placed in relationship to other maps and information, inviting the reader to think critically about each map’s authorship, style, and content.