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LORENZO TRIPODI
Cartografia Resistente: An Experience of Participatory
Mapping Implementing Open Source Technology
1 Framework
As a consequence of the economical globalization process, the concept of ‘city’
is being strongly redefined in its nature by connective processes transcending
its scale, dimensions, and institutional status (Moulder 2002). The city limits
are redefined by means of communication, while urban space is increasingly
mediated by electronic devices (Graham and Marvin 2001; Reinhold 2002).
Media, as well as mobility, assume a fundamental role in the construction of
new diasporic identities substituting traditional forms of citizenship (Appa-
durai 1996). Nowadays, we think about urbanity as a spatial condition more
related to access protocols, culture and communication than to physical
constraints and form (Virilio 1984). The urban field is no longer defined by
administrative or physical borders, by quantitative demographic parameters,
by political autonomy or homogeneous cultural identity alone, but by the
capacity to be connected and to develop specific roles in a global net, to access
distribution systems and to be visible on the global stage (Castells 1996;
Harvey 2006; Sassen 2007). While material production of goods is displaced to
peripheral or dispersed locations, symbolic production assumes an increasing
relevance in structuring the urban economy (Lash & Urry 1994). On the other
hand, the concept of community is increasingly less dependent on contiguity
and co-presence and more on shared interests, on networks, and cultures.
(Castells 1997)
In a similar scenario, the space experienced by urban dwellers is increas-
ingly a mediated/mediatic landscape, strongly influencing the common per-
ception of the physical environment (Mitchell 1996). The everyday life space of
the citizen tends to conflate with an exogenous, privatized and commoditized
mediascape that provides the effective environment (or platform) for an in-
creasing quantity of personal interactions.