Maps Beyond the Good/Bad Binary

5 Dec

from the #30DayMapChallenge 2023

For the past two years, ‘A Bad Map’ has been one of the themes for the 30-day-map-challenge.

While the mapping community has taken this idea for a creative spin and mapped the likes of disappointing places, a bad drought year, place names that contain the word bad, there has also been criticisms of the theme for being potentially discouraging to those who may be new to mapping. If you are interested in why this might be the case, Daniel Huffman has written a blog post on challenging the idea of a bad map way more eloquently than I ever could. Being mindful of any potential harm interpretations of this theme might cause, Huffman invites us to “think of ‘bad’ in more ways than just ‘what a beginner would make.’”

In response to the theme, Dr. Amber Bosse has also written the incredibly thought-provoking thread below on limitations on failing to think beyond binaries when describing maps.

We have a poverty of language when it comes to describing maps...often failing to go beyond synonyms of "beautiful"/"good" or "ugly"/"bad".
This poverty of language also does not accurately reflect the effective/affective capacity of maps.
Ugly maps can be a catalyst for generative community change.
Beautiful maps can be nothing more than a mirror reflecting the privilege of a mapmaker.
If you're engaging with content around this year's map challenge, select a map you're inspired by and list 5 or more words you think describe it...working to expand your rhetorical patterning beyond what you might traditionally hear said in a map gallery.
Full thread: https://x.com/mapbosse/status/1590726579873017857?s=20

Dr. Bosse’s thread above is something that stuck with me since I first saw it. Following their suggestion, I decided to pick some maps* that I was really drawn to during this year’s challenge and identify 5 words I would describe them with.

*I would like to note that neither the selection of these particular maps, nor the order they are presented in imply any form of hierarchy.