Counter-Mapping evictions in the san francisco bay area and new york city
PROJECT an article that traces the history of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and reflects on the use of grassroots cartography practices in support of housing justice struggles.
CO-AUTHORS Erin McElroy and Sam Raby
PUBLICATION Read the article online on Notes from Below
INTRODUCTION
The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) is a counter-cartography, data visualization, and multimedia storytelling collective that emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area in order to provide maps, data, tools, and stories to empower on the ground anti-gentrification organizing. The project has since grown to develop chapters in Los Angeles and New York City and ongoing solidarities with mapping collectives and anti-eviction organizations worldwide. While AEMP project members have written about the collective in a variety of sources, many of which can be found on our website, here we will explain a bit of the project’s genesis in the Bay Area, how we went about forming a new chapter in New York, and why we find it imperative to ground our mapping and analysis in anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and decolonial frameworks. We end by describing some of our newest work and upcoming projects. In doing so, we consider community-driven map-making a form of inquiry that allows us to collectively produce spatial knowledge useful in housing justice struggles.