Participatory GIS:

The Social Dimensions of Geographic Information Systems

Allison Phillips & Mark TirpakARQ701:

T. E. Geoprocessamento e UrbanismoProf. Gilberto Corso4 de Octobre, 2006

GIS Is not a neutral technology

Who controls the technology?

What GIS are being produced by whom for what purposes?

How can marginalized groups access, use, & benefit from this technology?

GIS as social construction

GIS influences society, and the social environment influences GIS applications & development.

Different than a “representationalist” view of mapping – where stable, known information is simply presented to the user (the maker strives to create “one perfect map”)

GIS must be viewed in terms of power relations (how to allow for competing visualizations and

situate the user more as the cartographer?)

The second text within GIS

GIS represents political interests, power, & hidden agendas.

Mapping subjugates populations. It politicizes (via borders and categories) our relationship with the ‘other.’

GIS are rhetorical devices.

There is a need to challenge “arbitrary dualism” or “dividing practices” (Foucalt):

artistic / “folk”/ popular vs. scientific GIS propaganda vs. true GIS

Questions to consider. . .

Under what circumstances is a GIS authored?

Who uses GIS? How is it used?

How do notions of accuracy vary with time?

Who has access to GIS and who does not?

Who is knowledgeable about GIS and who is not?

Is a GIS really necessary?

Who are the stakeholders?

Participatory GIS: opportunity or oxymoron?

GIS can turn local knowledge into public knowledge – and take it out of local control.

GIS can be used to identify more local resources – and/or increase outside influence on those resources.

GIS can legitimize local information and enable local people to make a modern argument – or it can legitimize bad / biased data.

GIS is a top-down, commercially-developed “Western” technology – does it have a place in participatory development?

How can local knowledge be integrated with and represented in a system that has traditionally rejected such knowledge?

‘Participatory’ GIS?

Participation at the level of producing information & use of information.

Barriers: cost (incl. time) / sustainability privacy/confidentiality user-friendliness / access issues skills and training integrating data / willingness to share data currency of “bad” data expectations for the system

Hopes: integrate previously isolated qualitative & quantitative data promote new collaboration / more democratic relationships

GIS & Participatory Research (PR)

PR origins = the work of Paulo Freire (concientization)

Variants of PR Participatory Action Research (PAR) Participatory Rural / Rapid Appraisal (PRA)

Participatory Mapping (PM) – local people make their own maps (narrative & cartography) Participatory Action Research Mapping (PARM) – emphasis on

collective learning and/or GIS development Participatory Research Mapping (PRM) – participation in making

standard maps.

Other “Barefoot GIS” techniques?

GIS & Empowerment

Increasing role of community organizations in all levels of planning

Types of changes in power relationships distributive (greater access / inclusion) procedural (new political legitimacy for certain voices) capacity-building (resources devoted to empowerment)

Types of empowerment Social – increased household and individual resources Political – access to decision-making processes Psychological – self-efficacy

Issue of scale – are transitions influenced, shaping, and/or limited by what is happening at other scales?

Sources

Crampton, “Maps as social constructions,” pp. 235-252 in Progress in Human Geography 25 (2), 2001.

Sawicki & Craig, “The democratization of data,” pp. 512-523, in APA Journal 62(4), 1996.

Abbot et al., “Participatory GIS: opportunity or oxymoron?” in PLA Notes 33, 1998.

Discussion on Foucalt’s “Dividing Practices” http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/duff.html