Exploring the Complexities of Community Engaged GIS

Participatory GIS projects are increasingly popular in urban governance. This paper explores the complexities of a community involved pilot project that was implemented in the town of Verona, Wisconsin and critically examines their GIS (Geographic Information Systems) practices and the support structures that played an important role in facilitating GIS use. The paper first traces the evolution of the project, and the role of the various actors in shaping it and then shows that relations between key institutions and actors played a crucial role in shaping the pilot project. While inherently supportive, these actors occupied a dominant power position, setting a top down tone to the project from its onset. As such, the project simultaneously enhanced and constricted the process of participation and spatial knowledge production of the community residents. DOI: 10.4018/jagr.2012100105 88 International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research, 3(4), 87-102, October-December 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. those resources, internal organizational characteristics and organizational networks with critical actors and institutions (Harris & Weiner, 1998; Elwood & Ghose, 2004; Ghose, 2007; Elwood, 2008; Lin & Ghose, 2010). Significant efforts have been made to incorporate local knowledge and value-based data into GIS (cf. Cope & Elwood, 2009), including community organizations’ active reworking of the meaning of mapping through traditional GIS tools (Elwood, 2009), creative engagement of visualization and multimedia representations (Harris & Weiner, 1998), and efforts of rewriting GIS software to embody multiple forms of spatial data (Sieber, 2004; Jung, 2009). The role of GIS provider actors continues to be quite crucial in GIS knowledge production efforts as technical complexity remains a serious challenge to citizens. Consequently, scholars have noted that presence of a dense network of agencies fostering public data provision, providing assistance in obtaining and using GIS and directly providing GIS services can facilitate GIS use for resource poor organizations (Barndt, 2002; Roche & Humeau, 1999; Martin, 2000; Sieber, 2000; Kyem, 2002; Ghose, 2005; 2007; Elwood, 2006; Lin & Ghose, 2008) including small local government agencies working with limited resources. Universities and local government institutes are particularly noted GIS provider actors in GIS knowledge production efforts (Ghose & Huxhold, 2001; Kodmany, 2002; Elwood & Ghose, 2004; Elwood, 2006; Sieber, 2007; Lin and Ghose, 2008, Knigge & Cope, 2009), but other such actors can also exert a strong influence. Network formation at multiple scales between citizens and powerful actors in public and private sectors is crucial for citizen groups to access resources and gain a political voice. Such network formation is equally critical for the powerful actors, who rely on their relationships with each other and with citizens to test their ideas or advance their own goals. The metaphor of network has been used in a number of disciplines, of which Sociology is prominent. In trying to understand the interaction between individual actors and the social relations within which the actors are embedded, different network theories have evolved, trying to seek a balance between the role of structure and agency. These include social network analysis, social network embeddedness and actor-network theory. All three assume that human actions are situated within social relations and are affected by them. In particular, relational characteristics between actors and the social networks are prioritized. In addition, political economy literature has provided the framework of scaled networks. Here, networks are seen to operate at different spatial scales, and scaled networks are seen to be dialectically related to hierarchies and markets. Two types of scaled networks have been proposed: thematic and territorial networks (Leitner et al., 2002). While thematic network links together actors from different places with common concerns and problems, territorial network links together actors placed in a common geographic area. Actor network theory also emphasizes the dynamic, evolutionary, flexible and unpredictable nature of networks. The importance of the interaction of human actors and nonhuman actants, working together to form flexible heterogenous networks, is advanced in actor network theory (Latour, 1987; Law, 1992; Murdoch, 1997, 1998). This approach has been used widely in the science and technology studies (STS), in which science is seen as a social construction, and knowledge is seen as a social product, an outcome of ordered networks of heterogeneous materials composed of humans and nonhumans (Law, 1992). Role of networks with powerful actors in facilitating GIS use has been explored further by certain scholars through different theoretical frameworks (Martin, 2000; Harvey, 2001; Ghose, 2007; Lin & Ghose, 2008; 2010). Ghose (2007) and Lin and Ghose (2008) have used the concept of scaled networks to understand the networks of actors formed at multiple scales and their hidden power relationships in their research on participatory GIS process in Milwaukee inner cities. Lin and Ghose (2010) have also used the concept of scaled networks to understand China’s urban governance. 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