The controversy surrounding the Kony 2012 video should not be allowed to obscure some of the important work that Invisible Children really is accomplishing in the region. With regional partners, for example, IC operates a reporting network that is linked directly to a mapping application, the LRA Crisis Tracker. Viewers can select any time slice since 2010 to find reported incidents of various kinds. The map makes clear two facts, only one of which the video makes clear: Kony and the LRA continue to commit atrocities AND the group has left Uganda. The snapshot above is from the first 10 weeks of calendar 2012, and shows incidents clustered in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This mapping project is reminiscent of another grassroots GIS project about which I wrote in 2010 -- the HarrassMap project in Cairo. In both cases, victims or witnesses of abuse are able to use geotechnologies to create maps that can be used both to draw attention and to guide investigators.
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