|
|
|
October 2003 |
Do participatory methods meet their claim?
Legitimacy, Participation and Empowerment
Can participatory geographic information (GI) tools support or detract from good governance in terms of participation and legitimacy of ownership?
Legitimacy demands interactive participation in the GIS planning/mapping processes, including software and hardware, by all stakeholders, in all stages from problem prioritisation, geodata collection, spatial analysis, through to map representation. 'All stakeholders' implies, commercial sector and government agencies, as well as civil society, that is community representatives, traditional leaders, and NGOs. But, full participation and 'homogeneous' rural or urban communities cannot be presumed when there are significant divisions by ethnicity, economic and socio-cultural status, gender, life-style; as in Kyem's (2002) Ghanaian case study, where clans are in conflict, and women are generally excluded from the P-GIS process.
In P-GIS, the essential questions are:
- Who is participating? Who controls the types, analysis, and uses of, spatial data and knowledge?
- Who handles and analyses the data and information? Is there open access to the instruments?
- Who uses and Who has access to the outputs?
Participation in P-GIS, as in other processes can be characterised into four degrees or intensities:
- Information Flows: One-way or two-way communication between 'outsiders' and local people, primarily technical information, such as resource assessment. But the topics are pre-determined by outside agencies. Even this level needs a (low) degree of participation in making maps, primarily in eliciting local people's resource knowledge.
- Consultation: Outsiders refer selected issues to local stakeholders for refinement. External agents pre-define main problems before consultation, and analysis into scientific knowledge is controlled by outside. E.g. maps of 'needs' or indigenous knowledge.
- Involvement in decision-making by all actors: Internal (local) and external actors jointly identify priorities, analyse current status, select alternatives, and implement. "Participation seen as a right, not just as the means to achieve project goals". E.g. maps of people's priority areas. (e.g. Chattopadhyay et al. 1996).
- Initiating Actions: Independent initiatives from, and 'owned' by, local people, self-mobilisation to perform relevant activities. This is an indicator of empowerment, and categorically different from simply implementation with their own labour inputs.
- A fifth aspect, sharing benefits’ - goods, services, or political support - is ‘recipient participation’, different from involvement in ‘doing’
Not just legend, but the whole 'map', needs to be liberated into the control of those who are affected by it. Empowerment can be promoted by transferring ownership from the conventionally powerful (typically, first clients for improved spatial information such as tax collectors) to the disadvantaged by use of counter maps that challenge (spatial) views of powerful.
|
Empowerment
The four intensities of participation are critically related to different underlying intentions of the agencies (external or internal) which are 'pushing' PSP/P-GIS/P-mapping as a strategy. At the extremes are 'facilitation', when participation is promoted to render it easier to introduce an outside programme, and 'empowerment', where participation is intended to encourage and reinforce local decision-making and responsibilities. In 'mediation', the intention is for the participatory approach to link the demands and priorities of the outside project and the local people.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
