Maps and mapping have long played a vital role in the planning, framing and conduct of war. They have also long been associated with the exertion of powerful interests, from being weapons of imperialism to tools of state power, bound up with surveillance, spatial administration, the demarcation of borders and property rights, and much more. Maps have further become an elemental means by which places and experiences are defined, engineered and commodified. Yet recent years have seen increasing interest in alternative, radical, popular and artistic uses of cartography. Significant among them have been forms of participatory and community mapping, which have apparently been enabled by digital technologies and the geospatial web. Through such means people may map their own environments and in some cases ‘map back’, contesting dominant inscriptions. This presentation critically reflects on aspects of such participatory cartographies and their common claims of democratisation and resistance, with the aim of stimulating debate about some of their limitations as well as potentialities. Seeking to trouble more celebratory accounts of participatory cartography, it focuses on selected artistic digital mappings that reflexively engage with the terms of participation as well as with the systems of militarisation, securitisation and surveillance through which they operate.