26. How interactive maps mobilize people in geoactivism

Thus far little has been said about how maps are employed in activism to unleash sentiments. Employing as a lens the emotional turn currently influencing geography, this article looks at a 15M map, a cartographic animation that shows a ‘connected multitude’ of indignad@s as they demonstrated in Spain in 2011; the ‘Left-to-die boat’ map, tracing the course of a ship in which 63 refugees lost their lives; and the ‘Western Africa missing fish’ map, which shows foreign fishing vessels operating irregularly in African waters. Interviews, fieldwork, and participatory observation are employed to understand how maps are designed to activate people through emotions. Based on DeSoto (2014) and Muehlenhaus (2013), the chapter also offers a taxonomy as a heuristic tool. from this exercise that all data-rich geoactivist maps that are rationalist or emotive in adequate proportions will be effective, these are characteristics found in three successful cases of maps which either mobilized people or sustained action. These samples illustrate how maps play a role in stimulating the two basic emotions that influence people to ‘do’ things: negative, motivating feelings during an early stage of the mobilization, and hope to sustain it.