Semiocide as a Heuristic for Duoethnography and Public Pedagogy: Exploring Multimodal Field Artefacts Using ESRI Field Maps

At its roots, semiocide is a cartographic concept and because of this cartographic core, we felt compelled to ask: can you map what is not there? And what type of attunement is necessary in order to do so? We used our experiences in field work and place-based education to answer this question through duoethnography. We find that mapping something which is absent is difficult precisely because of the type of attunement necessary to do so. We attempted to leverage ESRI’s mobile GIS app Field Maps to engage ourselves and our students in this cartographic inquiry project. We found that ultimately, our attunement to semiocide made us reluctant to use digital tools such as ESRI’s Field Maps. In moving away from digital mapping, however, we found ourselves developing a new type of commoning discourse through the semiocide concept. We open this paper with an anecdote from Marion about her own entry into cartography and semiocide; then we provide a short literature review of semiocide. In the third section, we outline our research questions and methodology, ending with a discussion on the project results and possibilities for the future. Early in my career, I was offered a project in a place called ARC'One. ARC'One is a vertically integrated warehouse-factory in a place called Queensborough, in a city called New Westminster. The project required me to go to ARC'One three to four times a week. I would take the train from my home in an adjacent suburb called Burnaby and get off at 22nd Street Station. Once at 22nd Street, I had several options: if I arrived early enough, I could catch the bus with the other factory workers. I did it once; I arrived very early (for me) at 7am and got on a big yellow school bus. I was surrounded by strangers, strangers who worked on the shop floor. I couldn’t wake up that early so regularly—my other option was to simply walk or bike across the bridge, then for 5 minutes along a quiet industrial road on Queensborough peninsula. This became my routine. At the time, I had an interest in what I called interstitial spaces—spaces that arise between official municipal zonings. I was interested in experiencing them—in traversing them, and in documenting what I saw within these non-zones. For instance, I was interested in the holes in the chain link fence alongside the bridge, where pedestrians took a shortcut to reach Boyd Street rather than take the long switchback—a desire pathway that had been made legitimate, if not official, within the interstitial zone. Along Boyd Street, I followed a canal with drowsy geese, then a number of flat, white, industrial buildings. There were also single-family homes with large scrap yards in front, a reminder of a time long ago in local history. There was still such a house next to ARC'One, on the perpendicular Boyne Street. The house abutted the warehouse to the east, and to the south was a large grove. The grove was filled with birds who nested and flitted everywhere; a gang of rescued cats roamed the tall grasses and chased them. There were insects of every kind, puddles of mud. I marvelled that a place like that continued to flourish next to these flat, white buildings. My interest in interstitial spaces also engendered a newfound passion in mapping—having spent my childhood moving from country to country, city to city, neighbourhood after neighbourhood, I have always thought in maps. However, my specific life circumstances in 2016 brought a new creativity to my mapping—I began drawing word maps. I wanted to know whether I could create …