Cited by 21Digital Humanities and ScholarshipGeography Education and PedagogyCaribbean history, culture, and politics

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Unmapping the Caribbean: Toward a Digital Praxis of Archipelagic Sounding

Open access
Goffe, Tao Leigh·2020·Archipelagos Journal

Abstract

Tackling the conceptual grounds of how maps have been deployed as tools of imperial capitalist extraction, this essay critiques how the two-dimensional visualization of land has traditionally flattened the racial entanglement of the Caribbean archipelago. It explores how born-digital cartography can be used to open up a new sensory possibility for understanding space amplified by sonic and video technologies. The author embarked on the digital project Unmapping the Caribbean with her students and a team of technologists, employing Esri's ArcGIS Story Maps platform to examine the contours of marronage and indigeneity in five geographies: New York City, Suriname, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica. The project anchors the relationality of sedimented racial histories in the archipelago through the concept of unmapping—that is, by creating digital audiovisual story maps of the five Caribbean spaces. Centering the way sound orients the human body in space, the project examines the politics of the opacity of spaces of black and indigenous refuge in Caribbean and Caribbean diasporic communities. The essay considers the pedagogical stakes of collaborative digital assignments that include mapmaking and producing visual soundtracks. The five geographic narratives that Unmapping the Caribbean has woven together are part of an ongoing project that aims to articulate archipelagic being.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The essay theorizes “unmapping” as a decolonial digital praxis for reading the Caribbean archipelago against colonial cartography, using audiovisual story maps and sonic methods to foreground opacity, refuge, and archipelagic being. It reports on a 2018 ArcGIS Story Maps project with 19 students and 3 technologists covering five geographies: New York City, Suriname, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica.

Key findings

  • Colonial maps flatten the Caribbean’s racial entanglement; “unmapping” means unknowing and uncharting territory, embracing Glissantian opacity and black/indigenous refuge. The place name Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come, established by runaways in Trelawny in 1812, survived with up to sixty resident runaway peoples into the 1820s, was besieged in 1824, and thrived until emancipation in the mid-1830s.
  • The digital project used Esri ArcGIS Story Maps to stitch five story maps into one project with five tabs. Students initially omitted New York City and Suriname from freehand maps, even though roughly a quarter of New York City residents were of Caribbean origin as of 2013.
  • Sonic un/mapping included a 40-second New York soundtrack layering subway train, waves, salsa, and drums; ten layers of gentrified spaces; Jamaica group contrasts between tourism recordings and Cockpit Country nature sounds; and Suriname, Hispaniola, and Cuba story maps centered queer intimacy, border music, and Santería.
  • Pedagogically, the course since 2015 treats the syllabus as a mixtape and requires deep listening, student playlists, and collaborative digital assignments; the project debuted at Caribbean Digital V at UWI, St. Augustine, in December 2018.

Methods

  • Critical essay and pedagogical reflection on the born-digital project *Unmapping the Caribbean: Sanctuary and Sound* (2018), with 19 students split into five groups and 3 technologists, using Esri’s ArcGIS Story Maps “Map Series” template.
  • Materials included freehand analog maps, student research, sound recordings, YouTube footage, an original composition, guest lectures, and video conferences with Caribbean-based experts; analysis draws on concepts such as racial sedimentation, decolonial echolocation, opacity, indigenization, and creolization.
  • The main analysis is conceptual and descriptive, not quantitative, using examples from the five story maps to argue for archipelagic sounding and decolonial cartography.

Limitations

  • Stated: the author flags ethical concerns about using Esri, a GIS vendor with US Department of Defense contracts, as “master’s tools”; platform access was limited at her new university for large numbers of students; the project is necessarily unfinished, and she is the guardian of the collected work.
  • Stated: copyright, fair use, and asymmetrical imperial legal legacies were ongoing issues; the author also interrogated her US-based perspective by consulting Caribbean-based experts.
  • Evident: no systematic assessment or outcome data are reported; findings come from one course/project and depend on institutional resources, a proprietary platform, and instructor curation, so they are not presented as generalizable.

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Integrity signals

Registry

DataCite · 10.7916/archipelagos-72th-0z19

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Claims the paper makes

34 Own interpretation · 15 No basis given · 10 Sources not found · 5 Own result

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  • Probably not a substantial claim. 60
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 11
61 of 61
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Vernacular oral traditions trace the roots and routes of the Caribbean and its diaspora to Africa, Asia, and Europe.

    “Vernacular oral traditions trace the roots and routes of the Caribbean and its diaspora to Africa, Asia, and Europe.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Maroon strategies of warfare against the British in Jamaica depended on rainforest cover, and locations in Cockpit Country are named to reflect these battles.

    “Maroon strategies of warfare, especially guerilla warfare, against the British in Jamaica depended on the cover the rainforest provided, and locations in Cockpit Country are accordingly named to reflect these battles.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Netherlands traded North New Amsterdam, now New York, for the South American New Amsterdam of Suriname because it was a sugar colony.

    “I taught them about how the Netherlands traded North New Amsterdam, now New York, for the South American New Amsterdam of Suriname because it was a sugar colony.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Because of Maroon leader Cudjoe’s 1736 land treaty with the British, Jamaican Maroons were supposed to return non-Maroon runaways to British plantations.

    “because of Maroon leader Cudjoe’s 1736 land treaty with the British, Jamaican Maroons were supposed to return non-Maroon runaways to British plantations.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Maroons and the runaways had inhabited the Windsor Caves alongside Caribbean wildlife.

    “The Maroons and the runaways had inhabited these caves alongside Caribbean wildlife.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Esri is a company invested in US defense contracts.

    “using technology from Esri, a company invested in US defense contracts.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    GIS specialist Michelle Thompson is of Guyanese, Trinidadian, and Jamaican background and is the daughter of a rural physical planner with the Ministry of Agriculture in Jamaica who studied at UWI in the 1980s.

    “GIS specialist Michelle Thompson, of Data Services, who was most instrumental to Unmapping the Caribbean, is of Guyanese, Trinidadian, and Jamaican background and is the daughter of a rural physical planner with the Ministry of Agriculture in Jamaica who studied at UWI in the 1980s.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The hashtag #JamaicaIsNotARealPlace has been popular on Jamaican social media.

    “the hashtag #JamaicaIsNotARealPlace, which has been popular on Jamaican social media.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Various religions in the Caribbean retain elements from African, European, and Asian cosmologies.

    “the various religions in the Caribbean certainly retain elements from African, European, and Asian cosmologies”
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Metadata

Authors
Goffe, T. L.
Affiliations
Cornell University (US)
Corresponding author
Goffe, Tao Leigh
Venue
Archipelagos Journal
Publisher
Archipelagos Journal
Published
2020
Issue
5
OpenAlex
W3117588026
Cited by
21
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 2
FWCI
56.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University) (cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Digital Humanities and Scholarship
  • Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Geography Education and Pedagogy
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Caribbean history, culture, and politics
Keywords
Caribbean, digital cartography, marronage, indigeneity, colonial cartography, sound and space, Caribbean diaspora, racial history, pedagogy

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