Counter Data Mapping as Communicative Practices of Resistance

Sandra Jeppesen and Paola Sartoretto
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Sandra Jeppesen: Media, Film, and Communications Program, Lakehead University, Canada
Paola Sartoretto: School of Education and Communication (HLK), Jönköping University, Sweden

Media and Communication, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: This thematic issue shares research that critically analyzes counter-mapping undertaken by community groups who appropriate, collect, and utilize counter-datasets to unveil and reshape spatial realities. The articles consider a range of multidimensional sociotechnical cartographic practices, including the politics embedded in various uses of representation, visualization, interactivity, and cartographic imaginaries, framing counter data mapping as communicative practices of resistance. They deepen our understanding of how counter-mapping can be understood as a sociotechnical communicative practice through which communities inhabiting marginalized and vulnerable positions have collectively mobilized the affordances of mapping technologies to both visibilize and contest the root causes and consequences of marginalization. Scholars here consider how counter-mapping is embedded in notions of spatiality and relationality, probing dimensions of analysis that include data sourcing, objectives, capacities, processes, collaborations, ownership, strategic invisibility, and so on, providing evidence of the emerging importance of sociotechnical multidimensionality in the production and cartopolitics of community counter-maps.

Keywords: counter-mapping; digital media activism; sociotechnical practices; spatiality; marginalized communities; data activism; cartography; cartopolitics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v14:y:2026:a:11980

DOI: 10.17645/mac.11980

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