Assignment: Locative Media as Participatory Archives of Civic Engagement

Professor Marina Hassapopoulou, New York University

Locative Media as Participatory Archives of Civic Engagement

Description:

This assignment creates new ways of using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to expand collaborative learning beyond the classroom through a type of activist scavenger hunt. The main tool for this assignment is Fulcrum, which is an easy- to-use mobile data collection platform. The assignment challenges students to a real-world scavenger hunt. The objective of the scavenger hunt is for students to use the customized data form on their mobile Fulcrum app to document examples of ongoing activism/resistance and civic engagement on and near the university campus (and surrounding areas), and to archive those in the form of videos, photos, audio, hyperlinks and participant interviews. The uploaded data can be visualized on a map and uploaded to an Esri platform such as StoryMaps for an interactive and publicly accessible visualization of the students’ collective cartography of local activism and civic engagement.

With the input of students, I added some required fields to the customizable mobile Fulcrum form builder, such as a mandatory field for a description of the data point (with the prompt “What do you see?”), a classification of the type of activism (reductively labeled as either “Active” for ongoing protests and current events, or “Passive” for more subjective interpretations of activism/resistance), a justification (“Why is this activism/resistance?”), and a field for uploading at least one form of audiovisual data such as photographs, video, or audio. To stimulate some healthy competition among the students, I set up a points system to award each finding. For instance, 10 points were awarded for data on active acts of resistance (such as a live protest march or demonstration), 5 points for passive activism (such as activist posters or signs), 3 points for interviews, 3 points for uploading more than one form of media documentation (video, audio, image), and -3 points for returning to class after the 1 hour deadline that was assigned for the scavenger hunt.

Inclusion in media production

Thinking of emerging technologies as tools for cultural critique and activism gives students the chance to produce meaningful interventions that connect real locations to memory, history, culture, collective identity, and civic engagement. During the turbulent post-election period, students found the scavenger hunt to be a productive experience in terms of the future of critical thinking and the defense of human rights. Being able to witness and document the many instances of civic protests made them feel part of the shared struggles for equality. Through this project, not only did students learn more about locative media such as GIS and GPS through practice, but they also created their own archive that makes visible and virtually permanent the multiple efforts for civic participation and free speech. The ability to capture ephemeral moments of protest further added to the meaningful aspects of the project, and helped the students experiment with different ways of documenting and sharing transient experiences. The scavenger hunt also gave them a chance to interact with their community (e.g. through interviews with protest organizers and participants) and become more aware of how their seemingly neutral surroundings become politically charged in times of crisis.