This presentation was delivered in the UW-Madison Graphic Design for Cartography course (Geography 572) on November 21, 2013.

1. Crowdsourcing and Participation in
Cartography
Geography 572 Guest Lecture by Carl Sack
cmsack@wisc.edu

2. I. Background:
Critical Cartography Revisited
• Critical Cartography: The study of maps from a
position that examines the social contexts,
underlying assumptions, accepted categories, and
power dynamics of mapping (e.g. Harley, Crampton)
• Critical GIS: Investigations of the mutual influences
between GIS and society (e.g. Pickles, Kwan, Elwood)
– How does our social context impact the way we create GIS,
and how does GIS impact the way we view the world and
society?

3. 1929: Surrealist Map of the World
(Variétés Magazine, Brussels)

4. World population cartogram
(Mark Newman, University of Michigan, 2009)

5. Some propositions:
1. Maps are expressions of innate human spatial
capabilities. Everybody can make maps.
2. Maps embed knowledge that is socially
constructed.
3. Maps are political. They represent and reinforce
power relationships.
4. Official maps support the interests of capital and/or
the state.
5. Participatory maps may be used to challenge those
interests with other interests.

6. II. Crowdsourced Geographic
Information
• Web 2.0: A set of technologies extending the World
Wide Web to enable user-generated content and
greater interactivity (two-way information
relationship).
– Examples: blogs, wikis, YouTube, social media.
• GeoWeb: (i.e., Geospatial Web) Web components
designed for the creating, analyzing, and sharing of
geographic data
– Examples: web maps, cloud-based GIS, CGI
– Coined in Jon Udell, 2005: "Annotating the Planet with
Google Maps." InfoWorld 27(10).

7. Now (2013):
Then (2006):

8. • Crowdsourcing: “The way that large numbers of
distributed people can work on the same project in a
very powerful manner, creating something where
the whole is more than the sum of its parts"
(Crampton 2010).
– Archetype: Wikipedia
• Crowdsourced Geographic Information (CGI): “The
widespread engagement of large numbers of private
citizens, often with little in the way of formal
qualifications, in the creation of geographic
information, a function that for centuries has been
reserved to official agencies" (Goodchild 2007).
– aka Volunteered Geographic Information

9. Examples: Twitter posts

10. Examples: OpenStreetMap data

11. Examples: OpenStreetMap data

12. Examples: Geotagged photos

13. Examples: Unvolunteered Geographic Information?
“The NSA may also be engaging in ‘geographic
targeting,’ in which they listen in on
communications between the United States and
a particular foreign country or region”
(American Civil Liberties Union, 2013)
NSA Boundless Informant data collection visualization (Wikipedia)

14. “Distinguishing volunteered from contributed
[geographic information] along ethical lines
signals important differences in the processes
of acquisition and the uses of crowdsourced
data” (Harvey, 2012: 31).
Opt-in (volunteered)
Opt-out (contributed)
Clarity and specifics
Control over data collection
Limited control over data reuse
Vagueness and generalities
Uncontrolled data collection
No control over data reuse

15. Wikimap: A VGI-centered application

16. Wikimap: A VGI-centered application

17. The upshot:
Powerful new tools are becoming ever-more
available for public users with no cartography or
web programming experience to make maps.
BUT…
Does this really lead to the democratization of
mapping?
Do computer-based and online maps empower
certain (Western) ways of seeing the world?
How do web maps represent and reinforce power
relationships?

18. Digital Divides largely mirror the social divides
in society-at-large
– Gender, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, global
north/south

19. So how can web maps lead to empowerment
of the disempowered?

20. III. Participatory Mapping and GIS
Participatory: Practices that
engage and rely upon the
knowledge of people with no
institutional training in the
field of study
– Focus usually on poor,
underprivileged, and
marginalized peoples
– Outside facilitators catalyze
(but do not control)
democratic, communitybased investigation, analysis,
and planning

21. • Participatory mapping: the use of maps in a
community-based decision-making process
– Emerged from Participatory Rural Appraisal, “a
family of approaches and methods to enable rural
people to share, enhance, and analyze their
knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to
act." (Chambers, 1994)
– Key principles:
• Transparency
• Inclusion
• Local Control

22. Related terms:
• Counter-mapping: the use of maps to contest existing power
relationships, particularly those involving private capital or
the state
– i.e, “Map or be mapped”
– "If you were entirely cynical, you could view the appropriation of
mapping from common understanding as just another police action
designed to assist the process of homogenizing 5,000 human cultures
into one malleable and docile market." (Aberley, 1993: 2)
• Indigenous mapping: the use of maps by Indigenous peoples
to defend, reclaim, or assert tenure over territory,
knowledge, and resources

23. Methods: Ground maps

24. Methods: Sketch maps

25. Methods: 3-dimensional modeling (P3DM)

26. Methods: Scale mapping, GPS mapping
Sipaliwini men use GPS to define their ancestral territory in Suriname
(Amazon Conservation Team)

27. Methods: Participatory (Public Participation) GIS
Flood hazard mapping workshop in Guwahati, India (Stefan Kienberger)

28. Methods: Online Participatory Mapping
Bad River Watershed Wikimap
www.badrivermap.org
Username: uw_cart
Password: maps

29. IV: Online Participatory Mapping
• Wikimap: (also) An Online Participatory Mapping application
• Key questions about wikimaps:
– How are wikimaps being used?
– When is a wikimap advantageous over other mapping technologies?
– How can wikimaps include qualitative data types that represent
multiple epistemologies?
– What are the implications of differences in wikimap scale and
domain?
– How should access and submission control be implemented?
– Who ultimately retains power over a wikimap?

30. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Purpose: Empower the views of local residents in land use
decisions by presenting local place knowledge and landscape
values
Landscape Values: the
symbolic meanings and
instrumental uses that people
associate with certain places
Motivation: iron mining, “jobs
vs. environment”

31. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Process: User-Centered Design
– An iterative design process that involves feedback from end-users
throughout the application’s development

32. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Findings—Needs Assessment:
– Interest in wikimap to convey scientific, narrative,
and informational knowledge forms.
– Digital divide between rural areas (most of
watershed) and cities
– Information needed limits to maintain respectful
dialog and protect endangered species and sacred
sites

33. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Findings—Development and testing:
– Maintaining regular communication is hard!
– Qualitative usability evaluation is necessary to
solve problems before release
– User-centered design works!

34. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Findings—Evaluation:
– 50+ users
– Map used mostly for map reading and information
seeking; only 13% contribution rate
– Improved understanding of places in the
watershed, but not landscape values

35. Bad River Watershed Wikimap:
• Questions for Future Research
– Is it democratic to have a small minority of users volunteering
information?
• OSM: 30% contribution rate
– How can the contribution rate be increased to create a two-way
map-facilitated conversation?
– Who really are the users? Are they representing the range of
voices from the area?
– What are more effective ways to present landscape values on a
map?
– Can a wikimap be a useful tool for challenging the dominant
interests of capital and/or the state? Can it set the people free?

36. Thank you!
References & recommended:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Aberley, D. (Ed.), 1993. Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Local Empowerment, The New
Catalyst Bioregional Series. New Society Publishers, Philadelphia.
Chambers, R., 1994. The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal. World
Development 22, 953–969.
Corbett, J., 2009. Good practices in participatory mapping: A review prepared for the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). International Fund for Agricultural
Development, Rome, Italy.
Crampton, J., 2010. Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS. Wiley-Blackwell,
Chichester, UK.
Elwood, S., 2008. Volunteered geographic information: future research directions motivated
by critical, participatory, and feminist GIS. GeoJournal 72, 173–183.
Freire, P., 2000. Pedagogy of the oppressed, 30th anniversary ed. ed. Continuum, New York.
Goodchild, M.F., 2007. Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal
69, 211–221.
Harvey, F., 2012. To Volunteer or to Contribute Locational Information? Towards Truth in
Labeling for Crowdsourced Geographic Information, in: Crowdsourcing Geographic
Knowledge Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in Theory and Practice. Springer, pp.
31–42.