Radical Digital Cartographies An Interactive Methodology Articulating the

Radical Digital Cartographies An Interactive Methodology Articulating the Cultural Politics of Representation, Global Development & Developmental Difference Ronnie Thibault Master of Arts in Cultural Studies University of Washington Bothell

Why Digital Radical Cartography? Bhagat and Mogel (2013) define radical cartography as “the practice of mapmaking that subverts conventional notions in order to actively promote social change. ” Digital mapping is an interactive medium that allows me to tell A story of the politics of global development and developmental difference while encouraging new questions about representational practices to unfold.

Christian Children’s Fund “Amazing Grace” “CHILDREN ARE A TRANQUILIZING CONVENTION” Liisa Malkki “ALL THE TIME SHOW BABIES AND MORE BABIES” Autism Speaks “I am Autism”

Keeping the diverse interactions between ‘then’ and ‘now’ in continual and active view of each other. Michael Pickering § Situate subjectivities within multiple matrices of power, politics and representation. § View the progression of images across time, political ideologies and economic structures. § Pre-Cold War § Contemporary Moment

Philadelphia 1896 Washington D. C. 2013

THE LANGUAGE OF DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCE “As modern society is organized it has to take cognizance of many individuals who, on account of defective or handicapping inheritance are unable… to maintain themselves… and thus are. . . a handicap to the well-being of the body politic. ” 1927 Kansas City Fair Source: American Philosophical Society Harry Laughlin, Eugenics Record Office, 1922

The Emergence of International Politics & Global Development as National Security

THE LANGUAGE OF GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT 1949 Truman Point Four Program “More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. ”

Former President Theodore Roosevelt 1913 Letter to Charles Davenport, Eugenics Record Office Director. “Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. ”

“Is the U. S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t and won’t control their population growth? ” Henry Kissinger, 1974

Key Geographic and Temporal Locations “The first humanitarian effort dominated by NGOs. . . The watershed for Biafran propaganda was the use of images of starving, dying, hungry children. ” Alex de Waal, 2009

Media Logic Humanitarian agencies, political and economic apparatuses, media and the public come together to produce what Cottle and Nolan identify as the humanitarian “crisis triangle. ”

Movements & Interventions

Moving Forward • What invisibilities emerge throughout the mapping process? • Localized social justice movements. • Contested territories & alternative sites of engagement?

Thank You! – – Ronnie Thibault University of Washington Bothell Master of Arts in Cultural Studies Request links to these radical cartographies at ronnie 22@uw. edu