Mapping the Color of (In)Justice
Investigating the Intersection of Geography, Race, and Inequality
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GIS for Social Justice & the Liberal Arts
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The Arc Towards Justice Podcast
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Topics in Race, Place, & Power
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Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
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Resources & Literature
About the Authors
Dr. Keith Reeves
Keith Reeves is a professor of political science at Swarthmore College. He is also the director of the Urban Inequality and Incarceration program at the College's Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility. Prior to returning to Swarthmore, he served on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of Voting Hopes or Fears? (Oxford University Press), and Martin Luther King’s Million Dollar Blocks (forthcoming).
Ben Meader
Ben is the director of Rhumb Line Maps, a consulting firm that specializes in cartography and geospatial analytics. His passion for human geography led to a degree in geography at Middlebury College where he worked as an Assistant in Science Instruction for two years. Since founding Rhumb Line Maps in 2013, Ben’s work has primarily been split between urban/environmental planning and social science research. He now resides on the coast of Maine.
Why Geography?
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said these words in 1963, his listeners might not have known how such a simple statement could have such complex corollaries. It is the “where” in the question that is seldom explored to its full depth.
Inspired in part by the book “Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein, this series of articles seeks to understand the geographic nature of systemic inequality. To do this we will implement a variety of tools. We’ll experiment with interdisciplinary cartography and geovisualization, explore place-based narratives, conduct historical research, digest current events and literature, and pose observational study questions inspired from GIS analysis and inquiry.
Readers may be familiar with the most recognized types of spatio-political issues surrounding justice—voter accessibility, border/immigration issues, redline districts, gerrymandering, etc.—but these are only the easiest to recognize. While it is enticing to blame individual figures or parties for these issues, the social and political systems responsible are much more complex. The way law is created, how and where it is implemented, who enforces which parts it, and where populations are disproportionately affected—none of these questions has a simple answer.
This blog series is a collaboration between a political scientist and cartographer. Dr. Keith Reeves has worked with Ben Meader of Rhumb Line Maps for the past five years to start answering such questions. We hope to share with you our most interesting findings; but, more crucially, we hope to start important conversations.
