Looking Back to Detroit for a (Counter-Mapping) Path Forward

Founded in 1968 by Bill Bunge and Gwendolyn Warren, the history and lasting influence of the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute can be told in many ways. For Bunge, they were a site at which to continue his “geographical expedition” as research method and at which to begin a pedagogical experiment in which “[l]ocal people are to be incorporated as students and as professors” (Bunge 1969, quoted in Heynen and Barnes 2011:v). They were expeditions turned inwards upon our own urban landscapes, attempts to “subvert the exploration practices of the 19th century” (Merrifield 1995:54) and, in so doing, to move explicitly towards a more socially just city. For his harshest critics, this subversion failed, producing little more than yet another colonial experiment by which geographers attempted to solve the world’s ills, this time with maps! (see Figure 1 below). Charting the full successes, failures, and contested results of the DGEIs is certainly beyond the scope of this review and likely impossible given that the very number of expeditions (as well as their aims and even locations) remains debatable. For