Institutional Partnerships in Using and Developing Information Technology for Community Environmental Monitoring

The notion of “real world” geographic information systems (GIS) technology can be examined through reviewing how one of Brazil’s largest non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, has evolved in an iterative process with the development and use of GIS technology. Examining the actual ways in which GIS is incorporated into the activities and actions of NGOs, such as Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, reveals that geographic knowledge is constructed and represented in innovate ways. This suggests a need for GIS scholars and practitioners to reconsider how GIS itself is conceptualized and constructed. I argue that through an analysis of the iterative relationship between technology and decision making within Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica we can better understand the nature of the organization itself, that it fundamentally serves a unique political mission, and societal beginning points for accessing and acquiring geographic information and information technology.