Creative collaboration

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Creative collaboration

• Toward an understanding of participation in
  participatory GIS (PGIS)
• matthew w. wilson

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Overview

• What is PGIS?
• How is PGIS an alternative to GIS?
• What is PGIST?
• What are some challenges of collaborative
  research?
• A proposal for theorizing participation to
  bring about better systemization?

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What is PGIS?

• Participatory Geographic Information Systems
• Or is it Science?
• Public Participation GIS (PPGIS)
• From planning, mid-1990s
• Improving access for NGOs and individuals
• PPGIS, PGIS, CGIS, weGIS

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How is it any different from GIS?

• Its fuzzy.
• Its about process.
• Its about local knowledge.
• Its generated bottom-up or top-down.
• It incorporates quant/qual data.
• Its about empowerment.
• Or is it?
• Its fuzzy-er.

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A way to study PPGIS
theory
EAST2, participation, socio-technical,
power/knowledge
socio-behavioral, critical reading
societal implications,new technologies
method
substance
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What is PGIST?

• Participatory GIS for Transportation
• Better than IPSPPTDM An internet platform to
  support public participation in transportation
  decision making
• Multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional
• Currently in the system design stage
• Preparing for presentations to PS partners

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PGIST meetings about meetings
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PGIST designed for the Internet
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PGIST designed on the Internet

• Plone
• Instant Messaging
• DocReview/PicReview

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PGIST the short story

• An individual
• enters a website
• collaborates with others to articulate values
• makes suggestions to policy makers
• votes on particular issues
• develops a better understanding of transportation
  decision making in Puget Sound
• affects change, feels empowered
• returns to website to play another day

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Challenges for participation

• Four Cs create complexity
• Communication
• Cooperation
• Coordination
• Collaboration
• Collab. research vs. collab. decision making
• Roles
• Writing/developing/authoring
• Content management the Google-factor

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EAST2 Demystifying participation

• A theory of participation which has 25 aspects,
  and eight constructs
• Three categories
• 1.) convening a participatory situation
• 2.) participatory process as social interaction
• 3.) participatory outcomes
• Eight constructs social-institutional
  influences, group-participant influence, PGIS
  influence, appropriation, group process, emergent
  influence, task outcomes, and social outcomes

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Challenges for weGIS

• A need to structure/systematize participation
• Participation in PPGIS literature often
  uncritically accepts a liberal notion of a level
  playing field
• Participation often assumes power is checked
  at the door
• A need to better understand the theoretical
  assumptions of PPGIS

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Questions to ask

• What are the limitations for systematizing
  participation?
• How are the notions of community, democracy,
  citizenship, the individual, the network, etc.
  implicated in PPGIS research?
• How are marginalization and normalization
  accounted for in PPGIS research?
• What sort of theoretical framework would best
  represent participation in PPGIS?

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A proposal

• In order to better understand the possibility for
  systematizing participation, a critical reading
  of Community Participation and GIS can help
  unpack theoretical assumptions which might add
  needed complexity for development.

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Methods for further research

• Evaluate EAST2 (enhanced adaptive structuration
  theory 2) as a theory of GIS-supported
  participatory decision making as a beginning
  theoretical framework for participation.
• Apply pluralist theories of community and
  democracy (and their critics) to unpack
  assumptions about power in decision making.

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Credit, where credit is due

• Brinberg and McGrath. 1985.
• Craig, Harris, Weiner. 1999.
• Craig, Harris, Weiner. 2002.
• Jankowski and Nyerges. 2001.
• Nyerges. 2004.
• Obermeyer. 1998.
• Slide 7 photos courtesy of Michael Patrick.