¿What world do your maps show?

Historically, cartography has always been not only a technical skill, but a mechanism to portray the world and control the world. Based on this throughout history, mapping and map production has always been or been associated with those who hold power: states, armies and, in our contemporary world, more and more, companies and corporations.

The production of maps was always linked to power based on the need to make visible natural resources, possible colonies, or trade routes. Additionally, maps are artifacts used to describe territories to consolidate or protect in strategic / military terms.

As a result of the above, throughout history, cartography has been predominantly, a mechanism of power that allows certain social sectors to have not only a more accurate view of reality, but greater control and influence over the same.

In the contemporary world, these asymmetries of power and knowledge do not only refer to the dynamics between governments and citizens. Around the world, national states face different levels of crisis in the most diverse areas of governance and legitimacy. In this context, national cartography institutions are no longer, in many countries, the main cartographic actors.

In this context, and for many practical purposes, today the world's largest cartography production entities are corporations that use various technologies such as satellite mapping, artificial intelligence, the use of predictive algorithms or big data to produce what products are perhaps The most complete and extensive cartographies ever produced in the history of mankind.

The problem lies in the fact that these huge geospatial databases - with the gigantic asymmetry in levels of knowledge and practical power involved - are under the domain of corporations that operate for commercial purposes.

In this sense, the existence of alternative platforms such as Open Street Map, which allow the collaborative mapping of the world constitute a huge academic - scientific tool, and a space of opportunity and empowerment for individuals and communities who wish to better and more democratically understand and describe their world.

Indeed, Open Street Map is not only a technical tool that allows to produce cartography to almost any person in the world with an extremely low threshold of knowledge and technological requirements. It is an extremely powerful pragmatic mechanism, whereby communities, activists, social organizations and academic institutions can produce cartographies or representations of the physical world, which are not centrally linked to commercial aspirations, private property management, or military defense.

From the organization of the event, we are convinced that it is essential to reconsider cartography and its role as a multi-purpose tool for civil use that allows democratic discussion of how to design the territories in which we live, in a more sustainable, inclusive, democratic and participatory

In this sense, the motto of the 2019 call is: What world do your maps reveal? Through this motto we want to ask the Open Street Map user community in Latin America about the uses they give to the platform.

How are you using Open Street Map in your daily activities and projects? And what aspects of reality can you reveal thanks to the use of this tool? We are interested to know how do activists who are working for social inclusion or community empowerment use Open Street Map? How is Open Street Map being used to portray and discuss situations of deterioration and environmental risk or detect urban / territorial opportunities for cities in Latin America, the global south and other regions of the world?

We are interested in discussing how Open Street Map is incorporating the gender approach, in order to broadly discuss the role of women in space and their role as a central actress in the construction of territories? How is Open Street Map used in conjunction with programming or open source interfaces, in order to link databases and produce new information and services that are relevant to the contemporary world?

We believe that from this premise of asking ourselves, what world do the maps we produce reveal? We can have a highly productive debate that synthesizes and reflects the rich work that is being done throughout Latin America using Open Street Map producing not only more cartographic knowledge, but empowered and critical communities and individuals that serve as vital actors in the construction of their territories .