Abstract
Community mapping has become a vital part of many health projects. The point of this activity is to provide a geographic, visual representation of a neighborhood or some other area. In this case, the visual metaphor suggests that events and behavior will be viewed from a distance and, thus, have an objective cast. The resulting “visualization” tends to reduce objects to a “cold image” (Lefebvre 1991: 286). Accordingly, what Martin Jay calls “ocular centrism” seems to dominate this practice (1994). In fact, this sort of mapping has become almost synonymous with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the use of other high-tech strategies.