MAP-it

The question

How do you get residents, civil servants and designers around one table without the loudest voice winning? Classic participation formats often yield little: the expert's map dominates, and participants react instead of design.

What we made

MAP-it is a participatory mapping method and toolkit: participants collectively build up a map using stickers, icons and free labels, negotiating along the way what should happen in a neighbourhood, project or organisation. The method makes power relations discussable and hands quiet participants an instrument too. The toolkit is open source and freely available at map-it.be, where users can compose and share their own icon sets.

What came of it

The method is used by research groups at KU Leuven, UHasselt and LUCA School of Arts, and by citizen collectives such as Les États Généraux de l’Eau à Bruxelles and CityMine(d). It sits under an open licence and still forms the backbone of my mapping and co-creation workshops today.

• Book · Huybrechts, Laureyssens, Schepers, Baciu and Dreessen, MAP-it. A participatory mapping toolkit (Acco, 2012)
• Article · Schepers, Dreessen, Huybrechts and Laureyssens, MAP-it: The Art of Designing a Participatory Mapping Method (2013), free to read
• The method itself · map-it.be, with kits, icons and session reports
• Manual · How to organise a MAP-it session (PDF, 28 pp.), under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, so free to use, adapt and pass on