This looks really interesting! I can't wait to use it for my organization to better understand the complex relationships that exist between the many different actors that exist.

What makes the Tactical Mapping tool powerful for me is that enables human rights practitioners and activists to have a better understanding and awareness of the terrain in which they work in. At first I thought the process would just be a simple exercise of putting a number of actors on a board in a situation we would want to change. As we identified the two parties involved in a situation we would want to change (the Irish youth and the police), and then moved outward in concentric circles adding related actors from the local, national and international areas, the terrain got complicated. We started to see there were a myriad of actors involved in multiple types of relationships with each other. This at first was overwhelming since it seemed there was too much to do, but the next steps allowed for a manageable plan of action.

Instead of getting overwhelmed by the number of actors and various types of relationships, the Spectrum of Allies exercise simplifies the situation and allows for targeted interventions. When putting the actors on different sections of spectrum (active support, passive support, neutral, passively against and hostile) we could figure out which actors to target to change the situation. Knowing to target neutral and passive actors instead of actively hostile actors can save activists much of their limited time and resources.

Another extremely useful result of this tool is that when a number of people are in a room brainstorming about who is involved in a network of conflict sometimes actors that seem unimportant or unknown are revealed as being extremely important. While we were doing the training it all became clear to us that the local militia was a key actor in the conflict between the Irish youth and the police.

Some types of relationships between actors we knew were either hostile or supportive, but others were unknown. This is another aspect of the tool I think is useful. When we suspected there was a relationship between groups we drew a a blue line to denote this and in the future this would be an area of research to see what sort of relationship exists. By researching potential relationships activists will gain a better understanding of the terrain and might find another actor to pressure to change the situation.

Locally, I think we can set up workshops inviting human rights organizations and activists who have specific campaigns and then teach them this tool, helping them with their specific campaign.

After training more people, having an open forum online where people can share experiences, and ask further questions to each other and New Tactics might be helpful. Someone at our meeting last Friday had the idea of creating an animated video with a voice over running through each step of Tactical Mapping. I think this is great idea to spread the use of the tool. But it really seems you need to do a Tactical Mappipng session with someone who has done a few to fully understand it.

First of all I really enjoyed the tactical mapping process we had. I remembered that the first time I read about it, I had a hard time to fully grasp the concept and how it was done. However going through the process of making the map with Kristin and everyone else, step by step completely shed lights on some of the parts I was not able to comprehend at first. Now I am very excited about Tactical Mapping. I believe this tool is of a great value for every citizen. I even thought that the process of mapping can be used to start an organization or as an outline to write and present a paper =)!

I agree with the idea of Chris to set up workshops that will gather human rights activists and tell them about tactical mapping. Another idea will be to teach students about this in a school setting not only University students but maybe advance students in high school.

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Participating in the tactical mapping session with Kristin was a great way to get to know the tactical mapping process a little bit. I had read the methodology and facilitation guide, and was very excited about it, but it really does take participation to understand the feel of the process and what is needed to make it effective.

What I find incredible about this method is how it manages to really reflect, even in a real-time and procedural way, the complex reality of working on a human rights issue. As we mapped out the relationships and "terrain" pertinent to youth-police relationships in Northern Ireland, the rhythm and ease of our conversations and mapping progress were interrupted, stalled, and pushed in different directions by the same things that manipulate our abilities when we do activism: lack of knowledge, big power players, broad generalizations, etc.

For example, as Kristin mentioned, the effect when we added the local paramilitary groups to the map was huge. As we continued after that, discovering how pervasive that player is through its relationships, we hit wall after wall in our intervention methods and conversation. We were constantly finding ourselves wandering back towards a possible (and possibly divisive) relationship with a paramilitary. Things got a little quiet, and as we stared at the board I think we all got a small taste of what people in Northern Ireland who might try to intervene on this relationship face over and over again. Paramilitaries had taken power over our conversation and mapping process, just like they probably dominate strategy in a community facing this problem. That might seem simple, or even just frustrating, but giving ourselves a reality-based starting point, however difficult to face, is an essential part of being effective in our interventions. 

Another example is how crippled we were by our lack of specific knowledge. Because we didn't know names or specific enough titles/roles/relationships (reflective of the often difficult tasks of research, networking, and developing contacts in advocacy), we hit dead ends. Again, silence would fall in the room and our intervention ability, or even ability to expand on the mapping process, would seem stifled.

However obvious such reflections may seem, experiencing those challenges in a strategizing workshop before one delegates tasks or embarks on a campaign can only serve to imbue activists with stronger, reality based strategies and visions.

Tactical mapping brings us consciously into the reality of the issue. The wide, complicated, sometimes ugly, reality of the change we are trying to effect. By participating in activism, in these issue terrains, we are already immersed in such realities; the question is whether or not we are truly aware of them, and thus able to be effective. It also serves as a true assessment of our own understanding of an issue: if you cannot complete some parts of the map, you or your organization may be missing big pieces of the puzzle for your issue.

It can be a reality check, I think, on a number of levels. And it can be frustrating. However, in the end it is truly empowering to become a more knowledgeable and aware member of an issue's terrain. We can keep a wider vision, but pair it with real-time goals, accompanied by knowledge-based strategy and achievable tasks discerned from relationships in the tactical map and the spectrum of allies. Know where you lie and where you are going! Whoever said human rights activists cannot be well armed? Non-violently, that is.

More than a simple tool for graphically mapping the actors in a given political or social context, tactical mapping presents some advantages over traditional power mapping that were, for me, unexpected.

(1) Mapping the room: the exercise itself exposes relationships/connections between actors of which participants may have more or less knowledge - certain relationships are deeply understood, where others remain illusive. The mapping process alerts the group to areas in which more research/information is needed.

(2) Pinpointing critical links: we saw that certain actors (not always those you'd expect) were deeply connected in the web of relationships. These places on the map would be likely sites of targeted intervention.

(3) Leaning into the complexity: tactical mapping removes any illusions about the clean or binary dynamics of a given situation. By the end of the exercise, the board is complex because the situation is complex. There's no "good guy/bad guy" dividing line and the tangled web of relationships between actors is clearly represented. This might have a momentarily demoralizing effect on the participants, but approached methodically and with patience, human rights activists can begin to address those threads in the web that are most ripe for change.