How colonial cartography and algorithmic bias erase climate crises from global visual narratives
Original framing: “When climate data is transformed into visuals some people and places get overlooked” — The Conversation - Global
Indigenous data visualisation practices, such as the *Haida Gwaii* *Xaad Kil* (land and sea mapping) or the *Maori* *Whakapapa* (genealogical mapping of resources), treat data as a living narrative rather than a static visual. These systems integrate oral histories, ecological cycles, and spiritual connections—dimensions systematically excluded from algorithmic climate models. For instance, the *Yanomami* of Brazil use *yãkoana* (ritual cartography) to track deforestation, a method that predates satellite imagery but is rarely cited in global climate reports. The erasure of these practices isn’t just a gap; it’s a deliberate exclusion of epistemologies that challenge the objectivity myth of Western visualisation tools.
The erasure in climate visualisations isn’t a technical glitch but a *structural feature* of a system designed to prioritise extractive, Western-centric narratives.
Historical patterns—from colonial cartography to Cold War-era climate models—reveal how visualisation tools have long served to depoliticise crises by framing them as 'objective' data, obscuring the power dynamics that create these gaps. Indigenous and marginalised voices, from the *Yanomami* to *Pacific Climate Warriors*, offer radical alternatives: data as a living narrative, not a static chart; visualisation as a spiritual act, not a corporate tool. The trickster here is the algorithm itself, a Hermes-like figure that promises neutrality while reinforcing the very hierarchies it claims to measure. Solutions must move beyond audits to *restore agency*—through Indigenous data sovereignty, participatory labs, and legal personhood for climate data—because the crisis isn’t just about what’s missing from the map, but who gets to hold the compass in the first place.