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Operationalizing participation: experiences and perspectives of participatory GIS program coordinators

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Abstract

Participatory approaches to geographic information systems (GIS) aim to improve program success rates and facilitate community control over data in environmental management and community development programs. But some argue that GIS is ill-suited for participatory applications because of its technical nature and reliance on experts to process publicly sourced data (Chambers in Electron J Inf Syst Dev Ctries 25:1–11, 2006; Dunn in Prog Hum Geogr 31(5):616–637, 2007; Radil and Anderson in Prog Hum Geogr 43(2):195–213, 2018). Yet, little attention has been paid to the outsized role of PGIS program coordinators in shaping relationships between experts and participants and determining how GIS technologies are employed. This study investigates the experiences of PGIS program coordinators and examines how they understand the processes and dynamics associated with participatory approaches, and how those understandings influence the ways in which participation is operationalized across different programs. This investigation highlights key challenges experienced by program coordinators and points to opportunities for intervention into the ways in which programs are designed and administered.

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Notes

  1. Since the goal of this study was to understand how PGIS program coordinators understand and operationalize participation and its related concepts, we did not define terms like diversity, community, or even participation for study respondents. Instead, they were encouraged to define and discuss the meaning, significance, and operationalization of these concepts in interviews, which are discussed more fully below.

  2. Radil and Anderson (2018) point out that it is difficult, if not unlikely, for PGIS programs to empower marginalized populations because they often continue to operate through established frameworks of governance within settings in the Global South. PGIS programs in those contexts must therefore aim not only to empower community members through engagement in the creation, analysis, and control of spatial data, but also operate outside of historic forms of institutionalized governance that contribute to disempowerment of marginalized people.

  3. The discussion of who shapes and contributes to GIS is not limited to literature on PGIS alone. In Warren et al. (2019), Patricia Solís asks how changing demographics in geography, particularly GIS, is reshaping the field. She notes that that geography is becoming increasingly diverse (particularly in terms of race and ethnicity, gender, and region of origin), less traditional in the constitution of faculty positions, and more interdisciplinary. She asks for attention to how the differential positionalities of these actors are changing ideas about GIS and its role in geography and encourages focus on the ways GIS might include such diverse scholarly voices and associated modes of inquiry.

  4. Kingston et al. (2000) indicate that web-based GIS applications may improve accessibility among participants. But the ability to access, change, and even use data can be separate from legal issues of data ownership and copyright. Data ownership can default to sponsoring programs that own GIS software when no other data-sharing arrangements are made and unclear or inequitable control of PGIS data can lead to undesirable and even exploitative outcomes (ibid.).

  5. The first author works and has contacts in community-based GIS programs.

  6. Population size may be roughly inferred from participation in professional groups and organizations. In 2017, the Participatory Mapping/GIS Conference in San Louis Obispo, California, attracted about 100 participants and dozens of speakers, and in 2022, the Participatory GIS and Technologies dgroup, a PGIS discussion group, had 1,852 members. Neither of these groups represent the whole population of GIS practitioners, but they may indicate a relatively robust, and growing, population.

  7. Scholarly researchers are often involved in, or serve as consultants on, community programs employing PGIS.

  8. In this context, the term “expert” can be understood as “persons who are responsible for the development, implementation, or control of a solution, or persons who have privileged access to people or decision-making processes” (Döringer 2020, p. 3). For other practitioner-centered interview studies, see Schroeder (1999) and Cleave et al. (2016).

  9. Snowball sampling, a method used widely in the social sciences, can be an efficient way to easily access a large number of respondents within a single social network and can be particularly useful for identifying specific members of a subgroup within a larger population who might otherwise be difficult to identify or access (Abubakar et al. 2016). While the PROUA coordinators found this approach effective, it is important to note that snowball recruitment can produce a sample population that it not representative of the larger population as a whole and tends to target participants with similar backgrounds and perspectives (Marcus et al. 2016).

  10. Many PGIS programs included in this study used PGIS program data for initiatives outside of the scope of their original programs. For example, the participant input from the Virginia’s Recreational Ocean Use program informed other state projects and Weather It Together used PGIS data to evaluate economic impacts on businesses to make a funding case to FEMA.

  11. While an accepted standard of best practices does not exist within the community of PGIS practitioners, standards and guidelines have been proposed within academia. MacEachren (2000) is closest to suggesting an industry standard that involves a four-stage process of assessment, problem definition, decision-making, and follow-up. Others focus on specific aspects of best practices. Rambaldi et al. (2006) sets out a series questions for practitioners that emphasize empowerment in the context of an ethical PGIS. Craig et al. (1998) emphasize equal access to data among community and program participants, and Dunn (2007) advocates for program design that takes “cultural, institutional and locational framings, the intended objectives and user characteristics, and the broader questions of political embeddedness” into account (620).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express our gratitude to each of the organizations involved in the study and to the representatives who participated in the interview process.

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  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Planning, Towson University, Towson, MD, 21252, USA

    Katherine Iles & Sya Buryn Kedzior

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  1. Katherine Iles
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Correspondence to Sya Buryn Kedzior.

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All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. Data discussed in this article that involve research with human subjects were collected using protocols approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Towson University under protocol (Project #1911060950).

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Iles, K., Kedzior, S.B. Operationalizing participation: experiences and perspectives of participatory GIS program coordinators. J Geogr Syst 25, 539–565 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-023-00416-x

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