Activist MIT cartographers aid Peruvian squatters

Cory Doctorow 12:19 pm Sat Jan 23, 2010

Jeffrey sez, "This MIT Media Lab project worked with activists on Friday to make maps with a community of Shipibo who've taken up residence on the bank of the river Rimac in downtown Lima – a city of 11 million people.

Using only helium balloons and a cheap camera, the GrassrootsMapping.org team, part of the Center for Future Civic Media, took pictures of the extralegal settlement from ~500 feet up. The images were rectified and the resulting map may help the Shipibo in their legal battle to gain deeds to the land.

GrassrootsMapping.org is a project which supports communities in cartographic dispute by creating low-cost mapping tools."

Grassroots Mapping with the Shipibo in the center of Lima

(Thanks, Jeffrey!)

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