Exercises in cultural mapping

1. Cultural mapping toolkits have multiplied over the years and represent multiple values, approaches, and orientations. From the examples provided in this chapter, select any two and prepare a brief presentation on what you see as the similarities and the differences. Consider what is included in the toolkit and what has been left out. Also consider the degree to which the toolkits have emerged from their local culture, or have been imported into that culture.
2. As students studying within a university, you have accumulated expert knowledge on university culture. That knowledge is tied to your personal experience and can be mapped. Draw a map depicting your “research journey” as an undergraduate student: Depict in images and words where you have found yourself engaged in research during your studies. Capture the places where research occurs, including the opportunities, the barriers, and achievements experienced. Once you have created your personal research journey map, compare it with the student and faculty examples linked below. Working in groups of four, use the instructions on reading and analysing cultural maps (provided in Section 5 of this chapter) to analyse how the student journey maps differ from the faculty maps. Consider initially the differences between first-year student maps and the senior-level student maps in terms of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Also, using the same interpretive schema, consider how (and whether) the faculty maps, which depict their notions of students’ journeys, capture the lived experience of the students. Finally, ask questions of the maps in terms of their spatial and conceptual dimensions, their affective dimension, their temporal dimension, and their cultural dimension.

3. In Section 3 of this chapter, we discuss the three orientations informing cultural mapping practice: (1) Self and place, (2) community attachments to place, and (3) culture(s) of place. Using either the examples provided in Section 3 or examples you’ve found through your own research, prepare a brief report on one project, identifying its orientation and what you see as the project’s major impacts and implications. How is cultural mapping employed? What is the level of community participation? How in your view have the participants and the community been affected? If you were redesigning the project, what changes would you make and why?
4. Your culminating cultural mapping assignment asks you to imagine you are pitching a community development and engagement project to a peer review jury made up of city council members and key funding stakeholders. These are people who are interested in funding your project through a Community Engagement Grant program. As you gather research to conduct your cultural mapping project, consider what information will be important to collect in order to persuade the jury when they view your cultural map.

In a full cultural mapping of the neighbourhood, you would want to work with local neighbourhood associations, residents, municipal planners, social and cultural organisations, health agencies, and businesses to create community engagement, direction, and support. The project would be guided through extensive consultation and partnership-building, ideally in the spirit of co-creation and co-presentation. The process would normally take several months. Typically, for a project of this scope, you would want to collect 30 or more participant maps in workshop or community meeting settings.

Your assignment asks you to create and record a personal cultural map, focusing on what you see as the 10 significant cultural elements that, when combined, produce a critical mass transforming the space into an engaging, immersive place. While not as extensive and in-depth as a full cultural mapping, the assignment will provide you with invaluable first-hand experience in mapping culture.

Once you have chosen a specific neighbourhood, examine the activities present, including opportunities for engagement and interaction. Also note any barriers to engagement or interaction. You might explore a range of venues within that space such as a café, playground, library, or shopping area. Observe and document what you see, hear, and experience in that particular place with an eye toward creating a proposal for improving resident and visitor experiences.

Informed by the data gathered, create a visual map of the neighbourhood. Using different coloured markers, highlighters, pens, or sticky dots to annotate your map, identify places of (1) high cultural value and engagement, (2) low value and engagement, and (3) places that have the opportunity to improve. Also consider the relationship among the places in the area: How do they fit together, complement or clash? How do they create a sense of community cohesion? How do they form the character of the place?

The objective is to create a map that enables you to take others—in the case of this assignment, the jury—on a guided tour of the neighbourhood. This is where you make observations and recommendations as to how you think you could improve your selected place or neighbourhood. You are encouraged to be creative and think about what could bring cultural value and opportunities for enhanced engagement to the community.