Prefigurative Community Building (Part 41)
Resource Mapping & Infrastructure Weaving: Building Resilient Networks of Power With
In any community, there are hidden lifelines, who gives rides, who offers free childcare or tools, who holds space in a backyard, who knows a lawyer. These connections sustain everyday life. But too often these networks remain invisible or disconnected. That's why resource mapping and infrastructure weaving are foundational steps for building resilient communities. Mapping brings the unseen into view. Weaving connects strands into systems. Together they create the fabric for meaningful collaboration.
This approach is a Power With pattern. It does not impose control. It surfaces what already exists, and strengthens it through coordination. It is about amplifying agency, not creating dependency. And it is especially urgent now, against systems that centralize power, devalue community knowledge, and leave essential needs unmeasured or unacknowledged.
Step-by-Step Guide: Mapping and Weaving Together
1. Form a Cooperative Mapping Circle
Start with a small trusted group of 5–10 people. These might include neighbors, mutual aid organizers, gardeners, teachers, care workers, community librarians, folks with disabilities, or anyone who sees and is seen.
Agree on shared principles. Consent and confidentiality are key. No data extraction. No external fundraising targets. Just purpose-led mapping. Listen and learn about each member’s contributions and needs.
Why: You are building relational foundations, not data assets.
How: Use open-source tools or even paper maps. The process is more important than technical precision.
Resource: OCTOPI’s “Mapping Community Contributions” toolkit, co-designed with grassroots groups in Johannesburg networkweaver.com.
2. Conduct Participatory Asset Mapping
Use community walks, storytelling circles, or mapping workshops to surface resources: physical (gardens, tool libraries), social (carpools, elder care), informational (language teaching, legal advice), digital (free Wi‑Fi spots). Include marginalized voices: People of Colour, LGBTQ, non-English speakers, people with disabilities, youth, elders, homeless folks.
Visualize assets, gaps, and overlaps. Draw them on big shared canvases or digital platforms. Invite people to self-identify what they already share, and what they’d like to share.
Why: This centers lived experience. It breeds collective buy‑in. It shows abundance.
Resource: The Laundromat Project’s Radical Mapping Guide on asset mapping and Black-led spatial justice practices laundromatproject.org.
3. Weave Infrastructure Around These Maps
Once you see patterns, for example many offering rides but no wheelchair‑accessible vehicles, start pairing and amplifying. Build resource sharing networks. Create tool‑sharing hubs. Connect rides with medical appointments, childcare shifts, and food access.
Do it slowly and collaboratively. Rotate facilitation roles. Keep agreements on access, shift‑responsibility, communication, and feedback. Keep it peer‑topeer, not centralized.
4. Use Technology Thoughtfully and Accountably
Digital maps help connect networks, but choose tools that respect privacy and decentralization. Prefer open-source platforms, geo‑mapping with self‑managed privacy, and peer-to-peer licensing to ensure data stays community‑owned.
Resource: Solidarity Economy Association’s UK pilot mapping mutual aid, co-ops, and solidarity networks computerweekly.com. Also see the open-source mapping platform Shareish for mutual aid geo.coop+9dlnext.acm.org+9bigdoorbrigade.wordpress.com+9.
5. Activate and Adapt Infrastructure
With maps and relationships in place, turn infrastructure into action: host swap days, shared calendars for rides or meals, matched volunteer shifts. Test and learn. Where assumptions fail, course-correct. Where connections spark new ideas, follow them.
Keep iterative feedback loops through community meetings, shared forms, or WhatsApp check-ins.
6. Connect Multiple Nodes – Federate, Don’t Centralize
As more mapping circles form in adjacent neighborhoods or affinity networks, encourage interconnection. Share maps, invite cross-site visits, host joint gatherings.
Avoid forming centralized bureaucracy. Instead foster a rhizomatic field, many roots connected, each following local logic. Support replication with toolkits and mentorship, not hierarchical control.
Resource: Grassroots Economic Organizing’s care map for Clapton Commons, capturing teams, services, and their relationships geo.coop.
Examples in Practice
Community Mapping in Cape Town (OCTOPI)
OCTOPI’s mapping in Johannesburg’s Makers Valley made visible local circular economies, mutual aid, and craft skills. They co-created dialogues about who already holds care, who is unseen, and how to connect capacities, with trust rooted in narrative sharing, not data extraction
Solidarity Economy Mapping (UK)
The Solidarity Economy Association mapped networks of co-ops, mutual aid groups, food projects, and shared resources. They chose open licensing and automation to share data peer-to-peer, positioning mapping as a tool for alliance-making, not hierarchical infrastructure computerweekly.com.
Conclusion: Mapping is Political
Resource mapping and infrastructure weaving are catalytic acts. They make invisible labor visible. They link isolated capacities into resilient systems. They disrupt Power Over by rooting coordination in relationships, not authority. And they lay the ground for federated, distributed collective care.
This is no small task, but each map, each shared calendar, each ride matched, rewrites how we relate. It dissolves scarcity storylines. It builds mutual accountability. And it designs for a world that values connection and interdependence.