[UW-GIS-L] Seeking Input and Potential Collaborators for Digital Archive of the CHOP

[Bo Zhao]

Dear Members of the UW Community and trusted individuals or organizations:

We are sending this event/project announcement to both individuals and
organizations, so apologies for cross-postings–please circulate within
appropriate UW communities and trusted individuals or organizations.

We are a small group of geographers reaching out to solicit feedback and
potential collaboration on a new digital map project called “Archiving the
Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP)”. Using a high-resolution drone image
taken over the CHOP on June 14th, 2020, and assembled into an interactive
digital map (refer to *https://hgis.uw.edu/chop <https://hgis.uw.edu/chop>*),
we aim to create a participatory digital archive wherein people who
created, participated in, and experienced the CHOP. Users can click on
locations and features within the map and then add descriptions, share
experiences, and possibly share additional things like images and other
qualitative information. Both the platform and the data will be publicly
available. We imagine this as an evolving public-archival resource. Before
opening the project up to more members of the public, we would like to
connect with people within the UW and trusted individuals and organizations
to solicit support, collaboration, comments, feedback, and criticisms—all
the things that you might have to offer. To this end, *we are holding a
Zoom meeting at https://tinyurl.com/archivingchop
<https://tinyurl.com/archivingchop> on June 8th at 10:00 AM PST, and would
like to invite your attendance and participation*!

[image: flyer.png]
The Zoom meeting will also be recorded. The meeting will last an hour,
during which we will present brief overviews of some of the technical
aspects and features of the digital platform, highlight some of the key
questions and issues we are trying to think through at this point, and then
open conversation for questions and feedback from those in attendance.

If you read the project description above and reacted with some combination
of “that sounds like it could be interesting/that sounds like it could be
deeply problematic,” we’d like to talk to you! Indeed, there are complex
and thorny issues here that we not only want to think through carefully,
but that we hope to center at the heart of this project. Many questions
remain about the dynamics and legacies of what unfolded in the CHOP, let
alone how to understand and continue to address the conditions that
surrounded its existence. The CHOP embodied and crystalized so many of the
public issues, troubles, and contradictions of its historical moment:
Remarkable displays of cooperation and mutual aid interwoven with deeply
disturbing forms of violence and repression; all manner of surveillance
trained on people struggling for freedom and visibility; countless actors
with different interests, agendas, and narratives; symbolic of many
different things to many different publics at multiple scales—the CHOP was
these and many other things, all at once. How might it be possible to
create an archive of the CHOP that frames these matters as questions for
continued—and urgent—public engagement, study, and analysis, rather than
treating them as concluded? As geographers we ask especially, how could
careful engagements with the CHOP as a space facilitate such an archival
process?

We are not interested in controlling the narrative or claiming to know the
answers to the above, but, rather, are trying to imagine how this platform
might be used to open up public participation and reflection around these
matters. We know there are significant blindspots in our vision. And we
feel strongly that, given the issues involved and the many potential
pitfalls, we need to proceed as thoughtfully and carefully as possible. As
a first step in this direction, we are seeking all manner of input from UW
colleagues and peers, and also seeking potential collaborators who might be
interested in thinking with us about the issues, questions, and
possibilities inherent in this project. We are also seeking leads on forms
of support that might allow us to undertake this work as carefully,
thoughtfully, and intricately as necessary to do justice to the issues and
stakes involved.

Please consider attending this event and/or connecting with us and this
project in whatever form makes sense for you!

Thanks sincerely,

The project team (Bo Zhao, Dan Koopman, Jin-Kyu Jung, Christian Anderson)
-- 
Bo Zhao (he/him)
Associate Professor in Geography
University of Washington - Seattle
Smith Hall 416b, Box 353550
(206) 685-3846 | hgis.uw.edu
Request an appointment
<https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/selfsched?sstoken=UUZvU2gxXzVlZnZpfGRlZmF1bHR8NzM4ODA5MzUyNjAxZDU2Y2ViNTZiMzk2ZmM0N2VmNzI>
*The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast **Salish people of
this land, the land which touches the **shared waters of all tribes and
bands within the Suqua**mish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.*
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