Participatory GIS and

mapping
A general review
focusing on technology and data
Thierry Joliveau
Saint-Etienne University CNRS UMR EVS
Thierry.joliveau@univ-st-etienne.fr

Cartographic Challenges. Bergamo. 23-24 April 2009

1
 Starting with a naive
question
Do Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS)
have a tendency to acclimatize
more easily in certain regions of
the World ?

2
Where can you find
PPGIS ?
When you read the (huge) scientific
bibliography about PPGIS
It seems to be more common in USA or
Canada than in Europe (UK excluded)
In Africa, more current in English than in
French speaking countries…
False impression ? Linguistic bias ?
Let’s have a look to the French case

3
PPGIS in France
“Not any serious experience of Public Participation GIS
have ever been observed in France” (Peribois 2007)
Some explanations :
French model of local governance
Complexity and redundancies in the organization of local
authorities
Growing discrepancy between real decision at intermunicipal
level and election at municipal level
Problems of dissemination and public access to Geographical
Information (Roche 2003)
More fundamental reasons related to French socio-
territorial organization (no grassroots and local based
communities as in north-american society) ?

4
PPGIS in France
In the 5-10 last years, things have been changing
Reference to participation is general in France
Participatory approaches are becoming common at local scale or
for national and large scale project
GIS are very intensively used by municipalities and local or
regional bodies.
But PPGIS is still not a real keyword in France
Neither in urban and land planning
Nor in French research agenda

5
Participative mapping
Participating planning is developing quite fast
French researchers have been involved in Participative
Mapping since the beginning
In France (Gautier, 2001) (Chastel et al. 2001) (Thinon 2003)
(Letissier 2004)
in French-speaking African countries (Clouet 2001) (d'Aquino
2002) (Boutinot et al. 2009)
In other southern countries as well (Caron 2001) (Bonin et al.
2002) (Imbernon 2002)
Italian researchers are very active in French-speaking
African countries (Burini 2005) (Casti 2005) (Casti
2009)
Participative Mapping is rarely connected to GIS
technology

6
What is PPGIS ?

7
Origin of PPGIS
A specific geographical context (North America) : PPGIS was
coined during 2 meetings at National Center for Geographic
Information and Analysis in 1996
An answer to the critiques of GIS as return to positivism,
instrument of capital control, government surveillance.
In response development of a new generation of GIS: GIS/2
(GIS two or GIS too)
A slogan : “empower less privileged groups in the society,
improve the transparency, influence government policy”
A question : How GIS technology could support public
participation for a variety of possible applications ?
PPGIS were born in direct relation with debates within the
academic scene about role of GIS in society and social science.
(Sieber 2006)

8
PPGIS or PGIS ?
Participatory GIS come from “counter mapping”,
(mapping against status quo), community action
and is promoted as an extension of GIS to
development countries situation
North : Public Participation GIS
 PPGIS is practiced in the North as an intersection of
Participatory Planning and Geographical Information Science
and Technology
South : Participatory GIS
 PGIS is generally practiced in the South as an intersection of
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) methods and GIT&S.
http://www.iapad.org

9
Progressive extension
New specialists attracted : urban planners,
environmental experts, social workers
new experiments and practices
More professionalized organizations adapted
PPGIS : NGO in developing countries or community
organizations in charge of local development
In USA and industrialized countries structure of
community organizations has progressivly shifted
toward professionalized organizations
Expanded budgets, range of activities, numbers of paid
staff (Elwood 2006)
Now PPGIS is a global umbrella embracing a
multiplicity of contexts, methods, actors,
situations, disciplines, milieus

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PPGIS : a complex
amalgam
Action-oriented and pragmatic field and active
academic research field
Technology oriented questions with a strong
epistemological and critical echo
Critical cartography (Crampton 2006), social and critical
GIS (Pickles 1995) (Schuurman 2000, 2002)
An interdisciplinary research
grounded in value and ethical frameworks : social justice,
ecological sustainability, improvement of quality of life,
redistributive justice, nurturing of civil society, etc
And a set of tools of methods used by professionals
of planning and development
 Doug Aberley and Renee Sieber
http://www.iapad.org/ppgis_principles.htm#ppgis_term

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Outside of the PPGIS field

Main research questions

addressed in France

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Research works in France
Geographical Information technology barely emerged as a
subsidiary question
The focus is on production and use of spatial representations :
Role and status of spatial representation in “territorial” project
How to use spatial representation to support participative approaches in
different fields of application : environment, landscape, urban planning
Two approaches
Pragmatic approach : experimenting different kind of methodologies for
fostering participation in “controlled” and real conditions as well
Theoretical approach of the act of” spatially representing” in territorial
governance
Relations between theory and experimentation
 (Debarbieux et al. 2002, 2003) (Lardon et al. 2001) (Lardon 2008) (Lussault 2003)
Technology questions not addressed

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Some recent examples
The workshop “Spatial Modeling and Partipatory
Territorial Decision” took place in Saint-Etienne in
June 2007
Series of participatory workshops in the form of
games
Objectives : gathering researchers and professionals
for:
Learning participatory tools
Evaluating the appropriation of the tools by the users
Improving the tools
Sharing experiences and considering the diffusion of the
tools and methods
(Batton-Hubert et al. 2009)
http://www.emse.fr/site/SAGEO2007/CDROM/articles-ateliers.htm
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Spatial reconstruction
game
Questioning
individual and
collective space
representations by
assembling various
objects in land
planning context

Ramadier,
Broner 15
Environmental negotiation
simulation platform
Simulate an
environmental
negotiation through
a role play and the
mobilization of
MultiCriteria
Analysis, GIS and
hydro modeling
techniques

Paran, Mimoun et Batton-Huber

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Territory game

A collective
elaboration of
spatial
representations for
analyzing a
territorial situation,
emphasizing stakes
and development
options

Lardon, Angeon, Loudiyi, Planchat-Hery,

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Using film for building
Landscape architecture
scenarios
The landscape
architecture options of a
new urbanized area are
discussed. Participants
illustrate their point of
view by extracting and
commenting pictures
taken out from a video

Lelli, Sirven 18
Using 3D diagrams for
discussing landscape stakes Secteur 2

ZONAGE A

 ripisylve à++


Building a
cultures
remembrées

 cultures

local plan by
remembrées

 boisements

locating  cultures
remembrées

pleasant and  vigne+cabanon

unpleasant
landscape
elements

Modifications

N
Voir des
NHb ou AH
plantations

Claire Planchat-Héry , Yves Michelin

19
Using 3D digital models in
planning

Experiment
3D Models for
urban
planning

Jacquinod, Joliveau 20
Using cell-automata for
simulating the effects of a
new by-pass road
Evaluate the
interest of
C-A tools for
comparing
developmen
t scenarios

Edwige Dubos-Paillard, Patrice

Langlois
21
Building cooperative
scenarios for planning
Experimenting
qualitative
modeling by
causal
relations to
simulate a
territorial
system
Rabino

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Main results of the
experiment
Pros
An interesting way to debate of different methodological approaches
Fostering the capacity to invent, build and test new solutions
Mixed audience (professionals and researchers) facilitates the transfer of
tools and methods to real problems
Cons
Difficulties in taking in count the planning process as a whole
No link to a more conceptual and general approach of planning
How to connect different tools on the same problem

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Back to PPGIS

24
Review of questions
addressed in PPGIS literature
Several typologies proposed (Schlossberg
2005) (Turkucu et al. 2008)
A very useful or complete review of
pending themes and critical questions
(Sieber 2006) :
Place and People
Technology and Data
Process
Outcomes and Evaluation

25
Critical questions
Place and People
Context
Stakeholders and other actors
 Building communities
 Politics and governance regime
Public
Process
Systems implementation and Sustainability
Participation and Communication in the Policy
Making Process
Decision Making Structure and Processes
Outcomes and Evaluation
Goals and Outcomes
Measurements and Evaluation
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A focus on technology and
data

27
Critical questions

Sieber’s questions :
Extent of GIS Technology
Accessibility of Data
Appropriateness of Information
Representation of Knowledge
 Representation/visualization
 Local Knowledge
 Combination of different knowledge
 Expert /lay knowledge

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Place of GIS

Important :
Obviously, data and technology has to be
connected to context, places, people,
process, outcomes…
As Sieber writes :
“It is an odd concept to attribute to a piece of
software the potential ton enhance or limit public
participation in policy making. However, that is
exactly what has happened with GIS (…)"
Yes, but GIS is not really a piece of software…

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What is and is not GIS ?

GiS is not …
… a software
… a mapping tool
… a database
GIS is an Information System
Information is not easy to define (Poore et Chrisman 2006)
GIS is composite. It includes people, institutions, data and
data bases, computers and software, methods and protocols
that have to be set up to produce one evolving outcome
a sort of socio-technical arrangement including (but not
limited to) fluxes and transformations of data

30
GIS vs Cartography
Historically GIS and Cartography as
“Science” are very close
GIS could be quickly considered as a
“dematerialization” of scientific maps
They have in common:
A reference to a commensurable Euclidian space
interoperability” where one dataset is commensurable
with another
Space conceptualized into points, lines, areas, and
surfaces (Crampton 2006)
Scientific goals, perfect formalization of a language …
Preeminence of the concrete, material and visual
dimension of the objects (Casti 2009)
More oriented to built environment, physical processes
than to describe social relations

31
Critical GIS and
cartography
GIS and cartography have faced with the
same critical approach
Political and social implications not considered
Technocratic, abstract and Cartesian approach
interested in formal processes and objects and
not in their role in human experience, personal
or collective
No place for social interpretation, cultural
transmission, idiosyncrasies …
Realist and positivist philosophy
…

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GIS vs mapping
Opposition between GIS as hardware and software for
interactive spatial data visualization and maps, mapping and
mapmaking as concrete objects is fading away
“Geodigitalisation” is a global a rapid trend
Geoinformation processing combines brain, algorithms, hand, eye and
mouse , paper and screen
D’Aquino (2002) notices that in a rural African context
learning to use a Role Playing Game on a computer running a Multi
Agent System is not difficult for ordinary people
reading and making a map needs anyway some training too
What maters is not computer or not computer but that the
combination of tools and practices fits the project

33
 A few examples of
interaction with maps
through a computer

34
Innovating GIS hardware and
software
a touch-sensitive tablet connected to GIS

35
 “Paint the region”
organization

(Dong 2006) 36
(Dong 2006)
37
(Dong 2006)
38
Solid models are useful in
southern countries

(Rambaldi 2004)

39
… and anywhere else
(Thau, South of France)
.

(Maurel 2008)
40
Solid models can furnish
data to a GIS

(Rambaldi 2004)

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 The inverse operation is also
possible

Source: société idéasolid

http://www.ideasolid.com/applications.php?idapp=1 42
 DiamondTouch
http://www.circletwelve.com/ 43
Socio-technical evolutions

44
Web, opensource, mobility
Access to data (Web mapping) and tools (Web
GIS) on the web
Remote access and interaction
New data available (Inspire Directive in Europe)
Not all the public can be touched but a larger and larger
audience is targeted
Opensource
Software (diffusion, community of developers)
Data (i.e. Openstreet Map)
Mobility
Geolocation
On the ground work

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« Neogeography  »
Beyond this inadequate word a very interesting process
considering Participatory GIS or mapping
New “Web 2.0” tools (virtual globes ,mashup, api) are
based on geospatial technology but did not spring from the
academic or industrial fields as GIS or cartography
New people involved in building tools that allow ordinary
people to generate personal or collective geospatial data
on the Web
People spatially interact through social networks and
provide a lot of personal and collective information
These tools are already used in local participatory projects
(in London with Google Maps API)

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Ambiguities
One slogan :
Cartography and GIS are no longer in the hands of experts
but in the hands of the users.
Some facts
User Generated Content is supposed to highly profitable
Space, location, place are a huge market opportunity
New economic actors emerge in the industry that are global
with an hegemonic project (Microsoft, Google, phone
operators…)
Some questions
Status and protection of personal data
Not actual business model for the “Web 2.0” activity

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First example : Google
Map Maker
Google Map Maker allows you to contribute,
share and edit map information
For certain regions around the world (Southern
countries), you can locate yourself, draw,
label, describe and moderate local map
features.

48
Google Map Maker

49
A debate on PPGIS.net
forum
"By submitting User Submissions to the Service,
you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable,
worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive
license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate,
publish, publicly perform, publicly display,
distribute, and create derivative works of the
User Submission." Google
Opensource alternative : Openstreet Map

50
2nd example : participative
political campaign
Google Map API
used for the
“participative”
primary
campaign of V.
Pécresse for
next year
regional
elections

51
Zoom

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Conclusion
GIS, spatial databases, maps, location tools and
services are going to be integrated in something more
general.
The process is global even if it depends on the level of
computer and Internet equipment of a country
Frontiers between GIS-map producers and GIS-map
users are blurring
We have to understand how “ego-centered tools and
methods” will be articulated to “geo-centererd tools”
(Ormaux vocabulary)
We cannot anymore think maps or GIS databases as
disconnected
“They help make connections to other representations
and to other experienced places” (Hanna et al. 2004)
The questions addressed by PPGIS have never been
so essential
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Thank you !

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55
Various definitions of
maps
A conventional representation of Earth surface
“Une carte est une représentation géométrique plane,
simplifiée et conventionnelle, de tout ou partie de la
surface terrestre dans un rapport de similitude convenable
qu'on appelle l'échelle. “
F. Joly. la cartographie. PUF
A representation of spaces in a formal language
“Représentation fondée sur un langage caractérisée par la
construction d'une image analogique d'un espace”
(Dictionnaire de la Géographie, de l’espace et des société
de Lévy-Lussaut)
Maps as a facilitator in human experience,
Graphic representations that facilitate a spatial
understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes,
or events in the human world” (Harley and Woodward
1987) cited by (Crampton 2006)

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