Popular cartography: collaboratively mapping the territorial practices of/with the urban margin in Mumbai

Abstract

This paper foregrounds the methodological question of how the heuristic research practices of mapping and ethnography operate together to co-produce situated knowledge of/with the urban margin. By critically reflecting on collaborative map-making with young adults in Dharavi (Mumbai), it argues for mapping as an open-ended collaboration in which mappers’ various ‘finding’ and ‘founding’ acts to support the production of situated knowledge of an ever-shifting urban margin. The continuous efforts to make such knowledge visible is through re-reading, re-writing and re-drawing acts. The method prompted by this experience is proposed as ‘popular cartography’. It aims to transcend mappers’ backgrounds, technical skills, and disciplinary biases, and offers a collaborative medium for expressing often overlooked, opaque or difficult-to-describe lived experiences.

Keywords:

• collaborative mapping
• Dharavi map-making
• urban margin
• ethnography of youth
• everyday mobility
• situated knowledge production

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the colleagues and critical friends who have contributed to the improvement of this paper in different ways and at different stages. First and foremost, the young adults of Dharavi contributed fundamental knowledge throughout. Special thanks to Archiit Chatterjee and Proshant Chakraborty for their help in the field, and Prof. Christian Pédelahore de Loddis for the general support during the PhD. Four students (Francis Hofmans, Maren Libbrecht, Romeo Nuitten, and Bram Van Droogenbroeck) as well as Prof. Bruno de Meulder and Dr. Jeroen Stevens from the International Centre of Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, have supported the (re)drawing phase. The writing group led by Dr. Yimin Zhao, hosting geographers, anthropologists, and urban studies scholars, has contributed to the (re)writing phase. Finally, our gratitude goes to the journal's editors and two anonymous reviewers for their critical and mindful suggestions that helped reshape this paper for the better.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Min Tang

Min Tang is a research professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. She has received a PhD in Architecture from the KU Leuven (Belgium) and a PhD in Geography from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France). Specialising in Global South Urbanism, she conducts multi-sited activities across urban peripheries of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Email: [email protected]

Viviana d’Auria

Viviana d’Auria is an Associate Professor in International Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering Science, KU Leuven, Belgium. Exploring ‘practised’ and ‘lived-in’ architecture is an integral part of her research within a more general interest in the trans-cultural construction of cities and their contested spaces, and this through intersectional and interdisciplinary perspectives. Email: [email protected]