The Unseen Landscape of Abolitionism: Examining the role of digital maps in grassroots organizing
Author(s)
Carrera, Dashiel
Ovienmhada, Ufuoma
Hussein, Safa
Soden, Robert
Date Issued
October 4, 2023
Journal
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Publisher
ACM
Citation
Carrera, Dashiel, Ovienmhada, Ufuoma, Hussein, Safa and Soden, Robert. 2023. "The Unseen Landscape of Abolitionism: Examining the role of digital maps in grassroots organizing." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7 (CSCW2).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Prison and police abolition has become a major political philosophy in North American discourse following the 2020 George Floyd protests. The philosophy remains divisive, and North American abolitionists seeking to coalition-build, provide resources for vulnerable populations and garner public support continue to experience challenges. We explore current usage of digital tools among abolitionists and the potential of a digital mapping tool to address these challenges. We conduct an interview study with 15 abolitionist organizations to understand activists’ perspectives on the value of digital tools for organizing and a content analysis of 25 existing digital tools that convey abolitionist ideas to the public. Our findings together reveal (1) opportunities for digital mapping and HCI to support abolitionist activism and grassroots activism more broadly and (2) the challenges of digitally representing a movement that is intentionally grassroots, covert, and often involves organizers working in disparate locations.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3610214
