Participatory GIS - A Paradigm Shift in Development?

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By Jen Osha and Daniel Weiner
(Dec 14, 2006)

The potential of participatory GIS revealed itself in a most unexpected
way to one of the authors traveling with a group through the Ecuadorian
Amazon. As invited guests of the Huaorani people, they recorded
testimonies of the personal struggles of the Huaorani to protect local
natural resources from oil companies, other foreign interests and the
Ecuadorian government. Amo, the guide, often shared stories about how
his family was forced to lead a continually diminishing number of
Huaorani into the rain forest for subsistence in the face of local
missionary activity and oil exploration. Now, however, the Huaorani are
worried that they will no longer have any rain forest in which to
disappear. Eight oil concessions, operated by six different foreign oil
companies, are currently located in the ancestral territory of the
Huaorani. In addition, two major oil access roads reach deep into
Yasuni National Park, and a third is being built.

Despite these threats, the people of Quehueriono village maintain the
positive attitude that they will be able to successfully petition the
Ecuadorian government to close a portion of their land off to oil
concessions. With a wide smile, Amo told his guests that the community
felt more confident now about approaching the government because they
had a powerful tool. When he disappeared into the forest to bring his
surprise, his friends talked about their expectations of the Huaorani's
new resource: a jaguar skin, a new blowgun, or perhaps more evidence of
the impact of oil extraction on his people. Amo returned from the
house, however, with a long tube cradled in his arms. His guests
watched in surprise as he delicately removed a rolled paper from the
tube and, with the careful help of other warriors, held it down flat on
the table.

Here, deep in the Amazon, was a map with community input of the
Huaorani territory within the Yasuni National Park, oil concessions
within the Amazon, and a highlighted area that Amo's community wished
to close off to oil extraction. Also included were areas for hunting,
firewood, tourism and conservation that the community had designated.
The map was generated by community members on transect walks using a
GPS in conjunction with the USAID 'Caiman' project, EcoCiencia, TROPIC,
and the Instituto Geografico Militar. As the guests watched, the
warriors at the table traced the yellow lines of the oil blocks with
their fingers to demonstrate how their community was truly surrounded
on all sides.

The Huaorani's story demonstrates the power of community mapping and
why Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) are diffusing
so rapidly. PGIS is the merging of participatory development with
various geospatial technologies and has its origins within academia,
development agencies and activist communities. PGIS thus contains a
broad spectrum of practices, but each has in common the combination of
local knowledge and formal "expert†information to produce an
integrated geospatial database that addresses community concerns. Of
course, communities are socially differentiated, and do not necessarily
have homogenous aspirations. As a result, PGIS displays many spatial
perspectives and produces outcomes ranging from community produced
sketch maps to Web-based multimedia spatial decision making systems.

Within the academy, PGIS emerged out of a broadly defined GIS and
Society debate. There is now an annual URISA conference that brings
academics and community development practitioner/planners together.
PGISs in core industrialized countries are increasingly Web-based GIS
projects that extend to communities. In developing regions, PGIS tends
to be more firmly rooted in practices of participatory development and
its increased utilization of geospatial technologies. This intersection
is producing a paradigm shift in development practice as evidenced in
the recent Mapping for Change International Conference on Participatory
Spatial Information Management and Communication.

The conference was held at the Kenya College of Communication
Technology in September 2005. Attending the conference were 154 people
from 45 different countries, there to support the belief that PGIS can
ultimately "encourage positive social change†(Corbett et al,
2006). The major themes of the conference included networking, the
creation of PGIS resource centers and defining good practices. Working
groups were also able to collaborate on issues such as:

- policies and funding that can either "enable or disable" PGIS
projects
- building solidarity and a common vision among PGIS practitioners
- sharing PGIS experiences such as the representation of local spatial
knowledge, ethics of the practice, and ideas on how to protect cultural
heritage
- regional strategies for supporting PGIS practice

Papers presented both for the conference and as a result of the
proceedings demonstrated a diversity of PGIS objectives, methods and
results, and the rapid diffusion of PGIS practices around the world.
For example, Corbett and Keller (2006) displayed a community
information system that was used in Indonesia to document traditional
knowledge in Indonesia. In this case, the tools used to create the
interactive map included digital video, audio recording, digital photos
and written text. Rambaldi et al (2006) presented a case study of a
Fiji PGIS where participatory orthophoto mapping and 3D modeling were
used to document cultural heritages and build support for collaborative
resource planning. In Kofiase, Southern Ghana, Khem (2006) introduced
the role of PGIS in mediation and consensus building. In Telpaneca,
Nicaragua, a geo-referenced community map was created to help prevent
and resolve conflicts over local natural resource management (Jardinet,
2006). PGIS applications were also discussed at the Nairobi conference
as a way to integrate local knowledge into community forestry planning
for carbon certification (Minang and McCall, 2006).

In certain cases, more than one tool of PGIS practice must be used,
either together or in sequence, to address specific community spatial
concerns. For example, the Kayapo people of Brazil accessed both
satellite imagery and GPS to make maps of their traditional land use
management areas. In this case, the PGIS practice was important as a
political tool for the Kayapo to demonstrate territorial unity
(Moikarako, 2006). In another case study in the Caprivi Region of
Namibia, Taylor et al (2006) shared the potential for PGIS practice to
expose and address issues of "identity, rights and land.†The
authors shared their experiences with PGIS practice for strengthening
local rights and increasing the community's capacity to manage a
conservation area.

The experiences and ideas that were generated from the Mapping for
Change Conference extended beyond the conference participants.
Contributions were made to the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declaration about cultural mapping
that helped lead to UNESCO identifying cultural mapping as an important
tool and methodology for protecting cultural diversity. In addition, in
April 2006, 30 states ratified the UNESCO Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage which both supported the
inventory of cultural heritage and raised questions about the ethics of
the practice (Rambaldi, 2006).

The need for good PGIS practice was another important product of the
Nairobi conference. As PGIS is inherently multidisciplinary, it should
incorporate a number of different moral and ethical guidelines. For
example, participants agreed that the foundations of the 'three T's'
must be added to the traditional components of mapmaking. These are:
"transparency, time and trust†(Corbett et al, 2006). The authors
state that transparency is needed in all interactions, and time and
patience are required to build the trust that is necessary between the
practitioner and the community. In a paper developed from conversations
and ideas resulting from the conference, Rambaldi et al (2006) state
that practice of PGIS is "scattered with critical stepping stones all
calling attention to troubling dilemmas and overarching issues about
empowerment, ownership and potential exploitation.†In response
to these problems, the authors outlined a "guide to good
practice†to help practitioners make appropriate ethical choices.
Since maps and their representations are such potentially powerful
products, the emphasis on good practice and ethics can be the
difference between community empowerment and further marginalization.

There is an undeniable excitement within both practitioner and
participant communities about the potential for PGIS to be used as an
agent for positive change. For example, for the last fifty years of
Huaorani history, the Queheuriono community has had reason to associate
foreigners with threats to their land and their culture. Amo and his
family believe that his people are now fighting for their cultural
survival. Yet instead of retreating deeper into the Amazon, they have
determined to use the best means available to protect their land. Their
decision to use PGIS at this crucial moment in their history is a
strong testament to the potential of advanced geospatial technologies
to empower communities to protect their land, their culture, and gain a
voice in local natural resource management. The choice of communities
across the world, as evident in the Nairobi conference, to reach for a
resource that is the combination of participatory methods and
geospatial technologies may also signify a profound paradigm shift in
development planning and practice.

References

Corbett, J., G. Rambaldi, P. Kyem, D. Weiner, R. Olson, J. Muchemi, M.
McCall and R. Chambers. (2006). "Overview: Mapping for change –
the emergence of a new practice.†IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping
for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory
Learning and Action, 54: 1-13, London.

Corbett, J. and P. Keller. (2006). "Using community information systems
to express traditional knowledge embedded in the landscape." IIED,
Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and
Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 21-28, London.

Craig, W., Harris, T., and D. Weiner (eds.) (2002). Community
Participation and Geographic Information Systems. London: Taylor and
Francis.

Jardinet, S. (2006). "Capacity development and PGIS for land
demarcation: innovations from Nicaragua." IIED, Special Issue on
"Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication."
Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 67-74. London.

Khem, P. (2006). "Finding Common Ground in land use conflicts using
PGIS: lessons from Ghana. IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change:
Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and
Action, 54: 36-41, London.

Minang, P. and M. McCall. (2006). "Participatory GIS and local
knowledge enhancement for community carbon forestry planning: an
example from Cameroon." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change:
Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and
Action, 54: 85-93, London.

Moikarako, inhabitants of, P. de Robert, J. Faure, and A. Laques.
(2006). "The power of maps: cartography with indigenous people in the
Brazilian Amazon." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change:
Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and
Action, 54: 74-79. London.

Rambaldi, G., Kwaku Kyem, P.; McCall P. and D. Weiner. (2006).
"Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication in
Developing Countries." Electronic Journal of Information Systems in
Developing Countries, 25 (paper # 1):1-9.

Rambaldi, G., S. Tuivanuavou, P. Namata, P. Vanualailai, S. Rupeni, and
E. Rupeni. (2006). "Resource use, development planning, and
safeguarding intangible cultural heritage: lessons from Fiji islands."
IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and
Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 28-36. London.

Taylor, J., C. Murphy, S. Mayes, E. Mwilma, N. Nuulimba, and S.
Slater-Jones. (2006). "Land and natural resource mapping by San
communities and NGOs: experiences from Namibia." IIED, Special Issue on
"Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication."
Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 79-85. London.

Weiner, D. and T. Harris, 2003. "Community-Integrated GIS for Land
Reform in South Africa." URISA Journal. 15(2): 61-73.

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