The Unseen Landscape of Abolitionism: Examining the role of digital maps in grassroots organizing

Prison and police abolition has become a major political philosophy in North American discourse following the 2020 George Floyd protests. The philosophy remains divisive and North American abolitionists seeking to coalition-build, provide resources for vulnerable populations, and garner public support continue to face challenges. We explore current usage of digital tools among abolitionists and the potential of a digital mapping tool to address these challenges. We conduct an interview study with 15 abolitionist organizations to understand activists’ perspectives on the value of digital tools for organizing and a content analysis of 25 existing digital tools that convey abolitionist ideas to the public. Our findings together reveal (1) opportunities for digital mapping and HCI to support abolitionist activism and grassroots activism more broadly and (2) the challenges of digitally representing a movement that is intentionally grassroots, covert, and often involves organizers working in disparate locations.