Community cartography in health communication: An asset-based mapping approach in four communities in rural Ecuador

ABSTRACT

Scholars and practitioners are increasingly turning to maps as tools for promoting health and development communication. These maps are often criticized for privileging the interests of the global North and for authorizing (neo)colonial approaches. The authors offer a case of community mapping incorporating asset-based community development that offers an alternative cartography. Drawing on the maps produced by members of four communities in rural Ecuador, the authors articulate how their maps productively use and challenge assumptions about maps. Following this analysis, the authors offer some implications that community-scale maps have for articulating rhetorical alternatives in health and development communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecuador
• asset-based community development
• asset mapping
• community cartography
• service-learning

Acknowledgements

The community work was facilitated by Darwin Guerrero in Loja and by Técnicos en Atención Primaria de Salud in Manabi.

Notes on contributors

Benjamin R. Bates (PhD, University of Georgia, 2003) is the Barbara Geralds Schoonover Professor of Health Communication at Ohio University.

Diana L. Marvel (PhD, Ohio University, 2017) is a project manager for the Fondation Marcelle et Jean Coutu in Montreal, Quebec.

Claudia Nieto-Sanchez (PhD, Ohio University, 2017) is a post-doctoral researcher for the Center for Research on Health in Latin America at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador and the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp.

Mario J. Grijalva (PhD, Ohio University, 1997) is Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Ohio University and Director of the Center for Research on Health in Latin America at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador.

Additional information

Funding

This research received financial support from the Infectious and Tropical Disease Institute at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador [grant numbers L13225 and N13486].