Mapping Power: Ironic Effects of Spatial Information

Technology

Jefferson Fox, Krisnawati Suryanata, Peter Hershock,

Albertus Pramono

Introduction

Map (and SIT) can assist communities to assert specific and permanent territorial claims to resources.

Maps can empower communities through sharing history of place, enhancing group awareness and identity, and building trust and communication between people.

Unintended consequences of mapping

Conflicts between and within communities

Loss of indigenous conceptions of space

Increased regulation and cooptation by the state

Tools, Technologies, and Ironic Effects

Tools—a hand-held GPS is a tool

Technologies—Complex system of material and conceptual practices

No exit rights from technologies

Widespread adoption of a technology leads to unintended consequences, ironic or revenge effects

Ironic effects are not incidental consequences but systematically conducive to the further deployment of the technology

Three Hypotheses

Enrollment: Local actors strategically choose to adopt or reject mapping technology

Unexpected Consequences: SIT has embedded within it values such as “objectivity”, “standardization”, and “precision.” The introduction of these values into societies where they have not been prominent will have unexpected effects.

SITs and NGOS: The adoption of spatial information technologies by non-government organizations (NGOs) causes problems because of their social context, the potential for cooptation, and a lack of resources.

Enrollment and Empowerment

Why do communities map?

Who was empowered by SIT?

Who was disadvantaged?

Who controls the maps?

What are the processes in which

empowerment happens?

Advantages

Empowerment does happen—both in terms of advocacy (making territorial claims against the state), and in communities in terms of being better able to plan the management of resources, monitor the implementation of projects, and resolve conflicts.

Enrollment: Who owns the map?

Case Study from Sumba, eastern Indonesia

Unexpected Consequences: Multiple interests and actors

Mapping can force communities to

confront latent issues which can lead to

conflicts.

Who represents the community?

Boundaries

Land Use

One of the ironic effects of SIT is that mapping efforts initiated to resolve conflicts between local communities and government agencies, often results in increased conflict between and within communities.

Unexpected Consequences: Impacts on community values

Are there any changes in the community’s

conceptions of space?

Are there any changes in the community’s

relationship to its land and landscape?

Are there any changes in inter-community

relationships?

Changes in communities perception of space

Case study from Ratanakiri, eastern Cambodia

Unexpected Consequences: Changes in the community’s relationship to its land and

landscape

Mapping seeks to increase security of land ownership, but once we map, people can only obtain security through land titling, a process that is controlled by outside authorities.

One of the practices often used to protect common property resources is control of knowledge about the location of valuable resources.

By making knowledge accessible to all, mapping breaks down common property systems.

SIT and NGOs

How does an NGO decide to invest in developing an SIT component to their work?

How do they sustain operating costs beyond initial investments?

Does the adoption of SIT affect relations with donors?

Does it affect the expectations of community members vis-à-vis the NGO partner.

How does SIT affect NGOs

Case studies from Indonesia

Problem: Effects of SIT on NGOs

Reasons for adopting SIT vary among

NGOs but reasons external to the NGOs

were at least as important as those from

within.

Shortage of technical capacity

Gap in expectations and work cultures

between staff trained in SIT and those

trained in community development

Over-riding need for strong protocol to

follow when introducing SIT into a

community

NGOs pay too little attention on building

local capacity to revise and re-map as

circumstances change.

Summary: Ironic effects

Mapping seeks to mediate conflict between communities and government agencies over land claims. Yet mapping often lead to further conflicts among communities and within communities

Mapping seeks to increase security of land ownership, but once we map, people could only obtain security through land titling, a process that is controlled by outside authorities.

We map to protect common property resources but mapping seems to drive privatization of resources and by making knowledge accessible to all, mapping breaks down common property systems.

Summary: But Yet

SIT does provide a means for re-inserting local people into “empty” state maps and strengthening their claims to land and other resources.

Mapping and working with maps enhances community capacity to negotiate access to local resources, develops technical and analytical skills for understanding both the immediate local and its complex relationships to surrounding locales and regions.

Conclusion

We have no choice but to map, but we need to map with a clear understanding of both intended and unintended consequences of our actions.