Latinx and Latin American Cartographies
GEOG 295: Special Topics in Geography
University of Washington • Department of Geography • Spring 2026
Course Description
Maps are never neutral. This course explores how Latinx and Latin American communities use cartography as a tool for resistance, storytelling, and justice, by drawing from Indigenous knowledge, embodied experience, and collective memory rather than data alone.
Through hands-on workshops and campus fieldwork, students build collaborative maps using FigJam and Humap. No prior mapping experience required. As a final collaborative project, students contribute to the Mapa del Bienestar: a campus wellness map built together using Humap, complete with walking trails, multimedia records, and QR codes placed on campus.
Designed for students in Geography, Latin American Studies, Environmental Studies, Data Visualization, and Human-Centered Design and anyone curious about how maps can challenge power, center community voices, and drive change.
Learning Goals
- Analyze alternative cartographic practices emerging from Latin America, including countermapping, social cartography, and participatory mapping.
- Engage critically and mobilize concepts such as cuerpo-territorio and senti-pensar as frameworks for understanding embodied and collective spatial knowledge.
- Apply human-centered design principles to map-making processes, including user personas and empathy mapping.
- Build practical skills with FigJam and Humap to create records, walking trails, and multimedia community maps.
- Conduct campus fieldwork to document wellness resources, meaningful places, paths, and embodied experiences.
- Collaborate on a community-driven mapping project that centers student voices and campus wellness.
Course Tools
FigJam
Used for design thinking activities including user personas, empathy mapping, Think-Pair-Share, and How Might We exercises. Students create accounts in Week 1. Free to use.
Humap
Our primary mapping platform. Students create records, upload photos and videos, build walking trails, and generate QR codes for the Mapa del Bienestar. Accounts created in Week 3. No GIS experience required.
Classroom Expectations
Respect and Listening
This course engages with themes of power, displacement, and justice. The classroom is a space for respectful and supportive exchange. Diverse viewpoints, questions, and thoughtful debate are encouraged as long as they do not cause harm to the physical or mental well-being of any individual, whether inside or outside the classroom.
Attendance and Participation
Your participation is essential and reflected in the course grading. Each student's voice matters and has a place in our classroom. In-person engagement is mandatory. If for any unavoidable reason you need to miss a session, please let me know as soon as possible.
Fieldwork
Four fieldwork sessions will take place on campus during Monday class time. Please wear comfortable shoes and bring your phone. All fieldwork is conducted in pairs. If you have any concerns about participating in outdoor activities, please reach out to me in advance.
Mental Health and Well-Being
Your physical and mental well-being are a priority in this course. If a topic or discussion feels difficult at any point, you are welcome to reach out to me. The UW Counseling Center offers confidential support and can be reached at 206-543-1240. These services are provided at no cost to currently enrolled students.
Grading Assignments
| Assignment | Weight | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Reflections | 20% | Short paragraph each week connecting your experience to course concepts. Due before each Monday session in Canvas. |
| Cuerpo-Territorio Body Map | 20% | Individual body mapping exercise on paper (Week 4). Students map emotions, memories, and experiences onto their body in relation to campus space. |
| Trail Pitch | 10% | Pairs propose a Mapa del Bienestar walking trail concept at end of Week 2. One-paragraph written pitch submitted to Canvas. |
| Mapa del Bienestar | 40% | Collaborative final project. Pairs build a campus wellness walking trail in Humap: records, photos, video, personal narratives, and QR codes placed on campus. Presented in Week 10. |
| Participation | 10% | Active engagement in class discussions, fieldwork, workshops, and peer feedback throughout the quarter. |
Grading Scale
| Letter Grade | Percentage | 4.0 Scale |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | 97–100 | 4.0 |
| A | 95–96 | 3.9 |
| 93–94 | 3.8 | |
| A- | 91–92 | 3.7 |
| 90 | 3.6 | |
| 89 | 3.5 | |
| B+ | 88 | 3.4 |
| 87 | 3.3 | |
| 86 | 3.2 | |
| B | 85 | 3.1 |
| 84 | 3.0 | |
| 83 | 2.9 | |
| B- | 82 | 2.8 |
| 81 | 2.7 | |
| 80 | 2.6 | |
| C+ | 78–79 | 2.4–2.5 |
| C | 73–77 | 1.9–2.3 |
| C- | 70–72 | 1.6–1.8 |
| D | 59–69 | 0.8–1.5 |
| E | <55 | 0.0 |
Weekly Schedule
Note: I may adjust some activities and readings during the quarter depending on our collective interests and pace. Please check Canvas regularly for announcements.
Week 1 — Class Intro
Students draw campus from memory on paper. Photos uploaded to shared FigJam board.
Identify our assets. FigJam accounts created.
What did you include? What did you leave out? Where did you place yourself?
Sticky notes on FigJam. Cluster and discuss as a group.
Week 2 — What is countermapping? Who makes maps and for whom?
This Is Not an Atlas examples. Empathy mapping activity on FigJam.
Who is the map for? Who does it leave out?
Reading: Denis Wood — Ceci n’est pas le monde
Each pair proposes a trail concept: working title + one sentence on whose experience they want to center.
Trail pitch submitted to Canvas.
Week 3 — Participatory mapping methods
This Is Not an Atlas examples.
User personas on FigJam — whose wellness experience is missing from campus maps?
Students create Humap accounts and explore the librarian's existing map.
Introduction to Records, Collections, and Walking Trails.
Begin planning what records they will collect.
Week 4 — Cuerpo-territorio and body mapping
Introduction to cuerpo-territorio with examples from Latin American feminist cartography.
Students draw their own body outline on large paper and map emotions, memories, and campus experiences onto it.
First fieldwork: Create first Humap Records: location pin + photo + one sentence.
Share one Record you created and why you chose that location.
What did your body already know about that space?
Connect body mapping exercise to first fieldwork observations.
Week 5 — Displacement and Extractivism
This Is Not an Atlas examples on migration and displacement.
Pairs share how their trail concept connects to course themes.
Pairs review their Records so far. What's strong? What's missing?
Think-Pair-Share on FigJam: what wellness resources exist on campus vs. what students actually know about?
Week 6 — Asset mapping and community cartography
What resources exist on campus? Who are they for? This Is Not an Atlas examples.
Second fieldwork: richer Records — photos, personal narratives, video. Focus: wellness resources and hidden gems.
Students build out the resource layer of their trail in Humap.
Add wellness resources, institutional spaces, and hidden gems as Records.
Instructor and pairs troubleshoot together.
Week 7 — Community mapping ethics
Discussion: consent, representation, and positionality in community mapping.
User personas revisited on FigJam — who is still missing from our map?
Pairs share their Humap Records with another pair.
Structured feedback: what story is emerging? What is still missing? Who is centered?
Week 8 — Full data collection
Brief prep. Pairs identify remaining gaps in their trail Records.
Full fieldwork. Collect video, record paths, document student-nominated places, fill gaps.
Focus: completeness. By end of today pairs should have enough Records to build their full trail.
Pairs structure their Walking Trails in Humap: order Records, write trail description, add cover image.
How Might We: how does this trail tell a wellness story?
Week 9 — Storytelling on the map + QR codes
Present trail-in-progress. Structured peer feedback.
Final refinements to Records, narratives, and trail order. Trails published.
QR codes generated. Pairs go out to campus and place QR codes at key trail locations.
The Mapa del Bienestar is now physically present on campus.
Pairs prepare their Week 10 presentation: concept, process, design choices, what they learned.
Practice run with another pair. Feedback and refinement.
Week 10 — Final presentations
Each pair presents their Walking Trail: concept, process, design choices, what they learned.
Class explores the full Mapa del Bienestar together on screen.
Guest attendance welcome.
What did we map? What did we miss? Whose voices are still absent?
What happens to the Mapa del Bienestar after this quarter?
Individual final reflection submitted to Canvas.
Course Policies
Geography Code of Conduct
The Department of Geography is committed to ensuring a classroom environment that contributes to optimum teaching and learning for all students. Individuals who engage in disruptive behavior that creates a negative or threatening environment for teaching and learning will be asked to leave the classroom by the instructor. These requests are not negotiable.
Disruptive behavior includes: verbal or physical aggression toward other students or faculty, threats of violence, unyielding argument or debate, yelling inside or outside of the classroom, untimely outbursts, violating class policies about technology use or seating, refusing to follow faculty directions, and entering and exiting the classroom in disruptive ways.
You can consult the Geography Code of Conduct on the department website.
Religious Accommodation
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW's policy is available at the Religious Accommodations Policy page.
Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.
Accessibility and Accommodations
Your access to this course matters. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience. If you have not yet established accommodations but have a disability that may impact your coursework, contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu.
Late Work
If you need an extension on any assignment, please reach out to me before the deadline. I understand that life happens, especially around difficult course material. We will find a solution together. Late submissions without prior notice will incur a 10% grade penalty per day.