UVic geography's hidden gem
May 30, 2023
(Map design and photo credit: Ken Josephson)
In April, Ken Josephson led students, faculty and administrators on a tour of UVic’s Map Shop (formerly known as the Community Mapping Collaboratory) in the Department of Geography located in the David Turpin Building. The walls of the Map Shop are covered with large, colourful designs that show not just where people live but how they live, and places of importance.
Community mapping is the cornerstone of Josephson’s work as a cartographer and he sees it as an empowerment tool for community engagement and a way to open up stories and give voice to those who otherwise might not be heard.
“It’s a research methodology for gathering information and re-presenting it,” Josephson says. “We’ve seen maps used to visually start documenting, to kickstart the brainstorming for planning and visioning, to build and move toward consensus much earlier.”
The Map Shop has a mission to facilitate processes for community engagement, student learning, globally relevant research, and sustainable community planning through participatory community mapping. The Map Shop engages students, community members, Indigenous partners in classroom-based and field-based courses, workshops and map-making.
A fourth year geography student, Noa Brown, worked as a research assistant this past spring where she supported students and community partners in more technical aspects of the Map Shop.
“In terms of what I enjoy, I would say both the ability to be creative when producing maps and basing them on my own interest, as well as the learning opportunities and experience gained outside the classroom,” says Brown.
A community partnership with Common Ground, Josephson, and the Faculty of Social Sciences in the ‘90s, produced the Greater Victoria and Region Community Green Map, which led to numerous partnerships, contracts, and mapping projects. The Map Shop continues to evolve today with faculty members, Chris Bone and Crystal Tremblay.
Both geography professors, Bone and Tremblay plan to bolster the Map Shop activities and partnerships while raising awareness of the types of services provided. The vision amounts to stronger ties with communities who will look at the Map Shop as a trusted, evidence-based source of data on contemporary topics that will inform policy decisions.
“We bring community-based, participatory research methods, geospatial applications and technologies to respond to critical issues,” says Tremblay. “Something that is quite unique to the Map Shop is our capacity-building and participatory approach.”
Josephson, Tremblay and Bone plan to build more capacity this summer and fall by hiring more students with the goal being to empower people—through training—to turn data into knowledge.
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