Mapping knowledge together: How social cartography empowers rural communities
When researchers and communities come together to draw a map, something powerful happens. The lines, colors, and symbols sketched on paper become more than geographical references; they turn into shared narratives of place, memory, and change. This is the essence of social cartography; a participatory qualitative methodology increasingly used to understand and transform rural and agricultural systems.
Mapping knowledge together: How social cartography empowers rural communities
When researchers and communities come together to draw a map, something powerful happens. The lines, colors, and symbols sketched on paper become more than geographical references; they turn into shared narratives of place, memory, and change. This is the essence of social cartography; a participatory qualitative methodology increasingly used to understand and transform rural and agricultural systems.
In a recent session organized by the Qualitative Studies Group of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, Leidy Tibaduiza-Castañeda, researcher at AGROSAVIA, shared her experience applying social cartography in rural Colombia. The method, she explained, goes beyond mapping landscapes, it captures how people see and relate to their environment, revealing social hierarchies, community dynamics, and tensions often invisible in conventional research approaches