Brainstorming topics for our disorientation map

At our first meeting (Sat., 6/14), we introduced ourselves (our interests and skills), explored some helpful readings and inspirational maps, discussed the politics of mapping, and brainstormed possible topics to research for our project.  

Of the folks in attendance, our skills and knowledges include: – filmmaking – GIS – cartography – free and open source GIS and mapping resources – urban geography, sociology, forestry – political science – computer programming – anthropology – website design – institutional memory (knowledge from attending and working at the U for a long time).

In our discussion of possible research topics that we could include in our map, we came up with the following list (see below).  Please feel free to add to this list by replying in the comment box below.  Also, I have not organized this list much, because that is a task that we should do collectively — so, please feel free to comment with interesting connections that you see between these different topics, and to think about the following questions:

1) Who is our intended audience for a disorientation guide/map?

2) What is our purpose with it?

3) Given our audience and purpose, what is the ideal form and content of our disorientation guide/map?  How can we compose a map (or maps) that would most effectively represent all of our different sources and types of data?  (Keep in mind that with a website, we could have lots of interconnected maps – for example, see http://www.transitmigration.org/migmap). 

4) Are there limits to how much research we should try to include, and if so, how should we prioritize it?  Are there some central questions/themes that could help us focus the scope of our project?

The list of possible research topics that we came up with in class: 

– research contracts (corporate, military – contributions to the war effort)

– model of a desirable university

– relationships and flows between the University and surrounding communities – mapping connections locally and globally (showing that the U extends beyond its borders – destabilizing the U’s fixed boundaries – challenging the idea of the U as a discrete place)

– where professors and faculty live in relation to the U

– disparities in resources between different departments and schools in the university (e.g., disparity between CLA and IT salaries for TAs and professors)

– critique of the U’s branding programs

– adjunct teaching labor

– a mapping strategy to assist social movements (as an activism tool)

– integrating different data types and sources on one map (with GIS)

– gentrification

– public transportation

– tuition structure (increasing economic and educational inequalities)

– student debt

– classroom sizes

– representing the U as a place of production (e.g., – work loads for everyone – seeing students as workers – unions – precaritization of labor)

– showing connections between conflicts in the U (common concerns for different groups activists to organize and mobilize around)

– diversity of workers, students, faculty

– histories (e.g., eugenics, military research – strikes, sit-ins, struggles for access)

– “land grant institution”

– buildings (e.g., funding for new buildings (more profitable departments, schools, and activities get better buildings than others), Coffman student union built on a shopping mall model rather than as a hub for student life)

– animal testing and human testing

– regents’ meeting (seeing who is talking – map the meetings’ politics) (and the secret meeting that they have the day before the public meeting)

– the roles of different figures in the university (e.g., the president gets money, the provost makes the real decisions)

– rise of permanent fundraising positions

– who makes decisions about branding, marketing

– U presidents convention (mapping connections at the university elite level)

– communication flows (who has access to mass email lists)

– communication between administration and unions