ETST 221: Race, Neighborhoods, and Cities (Professor Matthew Irwin)

*Always consult Cougar Courses for full research assignment guidelines.

Instead of writing a research paper, you will design and produce an interactive digital story map using ArcGIS Story Maps. This story map should be a collection of sources that reimagine your relation to space, place, and geography within, against, or through the strictures of capitalism/colonialism/modernity.

This is a research-based project, so you should develop your own questions, but here are some to get you started:

1. What resources (music, literature, art, relatives, etc.) do you draw from to make sense of your lived experience?
2. How is the space/geography bounded or broken by ecology (rivers, mountains, etc.) and the built environment (town centers, housing developments, artificial waterways, corporate centers, graffiti, murals, etc.)?
3. How is your sense of place determined by migrations (seasonal, daily, ancestral, personal, historic, quotidian) through the space/geography? Use your map to demonstrate migratory paths.
4. How is your sense of place socially constructed along the lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and/or ability? Who is included; who excluded? What gives you that impression? What is the colonial history of your place?
5. What (official, colloquial, mythical) stories do you know about your place? Research them and give us details.
6. Finally, and most importantly, how do you and your communities transgress the social/political boundaries of this place? How do you create a sense of belonging? (This question may cross with the other questions in this prompt; think about (and reference) course materials on forms of belonging created through stories, print material, visual art, shared values and resources, hubs, law, and (social) media.)