Crisis Mapping, Time and Community Development
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•346 views
Paper presented at Spatial Knowledge and Information Canada. Banff, Canada. 7 February 2014.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (12)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to Crisis Mapping, Time and Community Development
Similar to Crisis Mapping, Time and Community Development (20)
More from Independent Consultant | Research, data, tech policy
More from Independent Consultant | Research, data, tech policy (15)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Crisis Mapping, Time and Community Development
- 1. Crisis Mapping, Time and Community Development Ana Brandusescu, Renée Sieber, Sylvie Jochems Spatial Knowledge and Information Canada, 2014 1
- 2. Overview • Background: Crisis mapping & mobile technology • Relevance: Connections between crisis mapping & community development • Data & Methods: Montreal & Vancouver • Results: 3 communities, 4 applications • Limitations: Temporality
- 4. What is crisis mapping? Crisis mapping origins Crisis mapping Community development Public Participatory GIS processes vs (Elwood & Ghose, 2004; Sieber, 2006; Goodchild & Li, 2012) Web 2.0 applications (Haklay, 2010; Zook et al., 2010) 2
- 6. Mobile technology in the developing world & progressive outcomes (Abraham, 2007; Patnaik et al., 2009; Aker & Mbiti, 2010) Communication, networking and social structures for communities (Horst & Miller, 2006; Hardey, 2007; Donner, 2008; Yzer & Southwell, 2008; Katz, 2011) Challenges: Gender, income & digital divides ICTs do not guarantee community support (Girard & O Siochru, 2006)
- 8. Lachine, Montreal Application 1: Espaces Lachine (Lachine Spaces) Application 2: Saine Alimentation (Healthy Eating) 7,340 low-income residents (18% Lachine pop.) Table for Youth Dialogue in Lachine Acadia Park, Vancouver Application 3: Acadia Park Spaces student family housing, middle class families (1,700 pop.) Acadia Families for Sustainable Communities Grandview-Woodland, Vancouver Application 4: Let The People Speak Mixed low & middle income population, multiple ethnicities, renters (66% pop.)
- 10. Results
- 12. 4 4 4
- 13. Can we use a crisis mapping platform for community development?
- 14. 1a. Community issue too acute for crisis platforms… Application 4 never launched Existing reliable methods of community practices New technology Dilution of community efforts / message fatigue Crisis mapping ecosystem Crisis platform functionality No such ecosystem for technology in community development
- 15. 1b. Or a good match Acadia Park Spaces Imminent rezoning Demand for a mapping-based method Safe environment for contributions A community open to new technology projects and channels of communication
- 16. 2. A chronic issue vs an acute driven issue Difference in development times 1 year in Lachine vs 2 months in Acadia Park Reorientation of goals Communication medium & contributions venue
- 17. 3. Participant motivations Motivations vary amongst users (Budhathoki, 2010) Self expression, altruism, pride of place (Coleman et al., 2009) future community aspirations Urgency and clarity of goals is unclear In Lachine: No identifiable causal links In Acadia Park: Urgency linked to motivations
- 18. 4. Unclear connection between contribution and action Ex: Playground safety in Lachine A sense of response immediacy No guarantee of an immediacy of action Crisis mapping presumes action = reporting
- 19. Conclusions Mixed results Platform adoption varied Development times and goal reorientation drives platform use Motivations & participation depend on urgency of issues Immediacy of action is not guaranteed
- 21. References Abraham, R. (2007). Mobile phones and economic development. Aker, J., & Mbiti, I. (2010). Mobile phones and economic development in Africa. Budhathoki, N.R. (2010). Participants ‘motivations to contribute geographic information in an online community. Coleman, D.J., Georgiadou, Y., & Labonte, J. (2009). VGI: the nature and motivation of produsers. Donner, J. (2008). Research approaches to mobile use in the developing world. Elwood, S., & Ghose, R. (2004). PPGIS in community development planning. Girard, B., & O Siochru, S. (2006). (Eds.). Communicating in the information society. Goodchild, M. F., & Li, L. (2012). Assuring the quality of VGI. Haklay, M. (2010). How good is volunteered geographical information? Hardey, M. (2007). The city in the age of web 2.0 a new synergistic relationship between place and people. Horst, H., & Miller, D. (2006). The cell phone: an anthropology of communication. Katz, J.E. (2011). Mobile communication: dimensions of social policy. Patnaik, S., Brunskill, E., & Thies, W. (2009, April). Evaluating the accuracy of data collection on mobile phones: a study of forms, SMS, and voice. Sieber, R.E. (2006). Public Participation Geographic Information Systems. Yzer, M.C., & Southwell, B.G. (2008). New communication technologies, old questions. Zook, M, Graham, M., Shelton, T., & Gorman, S. (2010). VGI and crowdsourcing disaster relief.
- 22. [1] http://www.conferencecenterblog.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/09/ social_media_clutter1.jpg [2] Crowdsourcing logo. http://blog.hbs.edu/hbsinov8/?p=1652 [3] Ushahidi Haiti Project. [4] Acadia Park Spaces logo designed by Lisa Chen-Wing. https://acadiaparkspaces.crowdmap.com Image References
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon everyone. My name is Ana Brandusescu, and I’m a finishing Masters student in Geography from McGill University under the supervision of Professor Renee Sieber and Professor Sylvie Jochems. Today I will discuss and try to answer the question, can we use a crisis mapping platform for community development?
- So a short overview. First I will introduce crisis mapping and the use of mobile technology in developing world communities. Next I will draw on links to show ties between crisis mapping and community development from case studies in Montreal and Vancouver. These case studies include 4 applications that had mixed results in terms of community implementation, largely because of temporality issues.
- Crisis mapping is promoted as a medium by which impacted individuals can easily contribute and share information related to natural and human disasters. It has garnered considerable media attention, volunteer support and funding from numerous agencies. Despite challenges, crisis mapping demonstrates connectivity between linking open source software, humanitarian crises, crowdsourcing and adaptable tools. Crisis mapping builds on a long history of digital mapping for community empowerment. For example, Public Participatory GIS processes have emerged to assist in community development, to preserve urban parks and identify bad landlords, because often, residents are seen to have the best knowledge of their community. Citizens have been able to reframe public policy debates and even gain control over planning processes, providing more sophisticated analyses and visualizations than experts and officials.
- Where did Ushahidi start? The platform was originally created to allow for easy and fast reporting of post-election violence in Kenya and the Haiti Earthquake. It later extended its use for non-crisis scenarios and non-expert use by creating the Crowdmap application. Citizens contribute content via text, twitter, email, web or a smartphone application. Platforms like Ushahidi and Crowdmap explicitly link mapping and texting, which differentiate them from the rest of online platforms that solely rely on the Internet for user contribution.
- Using mobile technology for community development has been linked to progressive outcomes seen in banking, epidemiology, agriculture, and fishing in the developing world. A significant part of what drives this usage is the potential for increasing community integration. Authors argue mobile technologies facilitate communication, promote networking, and build social structures for communities. However, researchers should keep in mind ways that mobile phone usage in a project does not guarantee support from existing community development initiatives because Information and Communication Technologies are not always viewed as broadening participation.
- We worked with three communities in Canada and built four applications. The first two, Espaces Lachine and Saine Alimentation were created for Lachine, a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Montreal. We worked with the Table for Youth Dialogue, an umbrella non-profit organization that organizes activities and events for Lachine youth, professionals, and adults. The third application, Acadia Park Spaces was created for Acadia Park, a neighbourhood of Vancouver consisting of young, middle class families living in subsidized student housing. We worked with the collective Acadia Families for Sustainable Communities that was concerned about the community’s land-use changes. Lastly, a fourth application, Let The People Speak, was created but never launched for the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver. The neighbourhood is comprised of a mixed low and middle income population of multiple ethnicities that are largely renters.
- Each application we launched consisted of three parts: a mapping software platform, telecommunications hardware, and a telecommunications software platform. We also used creative methods such as cartoon style storyboards to communicate new technologies in communities.
- This is Acadia Park Spaces, where residents were able to report on places they loved to places they want changed. By clicking on the these tabs you sub categories are revealed (housing, social spaces, green spaces). The blue circles with numbers are clusters of messages sent to this website.
- The application allows you to zoom in and click on a cluster of reports. These reports appear and you can further click on a report to see all the details.
- So, can we use a crisis mapping platform for community development? Is there an embedded temporality to a technology developed for crises that can or cannot be translated to more long-term, non-event-driven conditions? Here are our 4 main findings…
- First, an acute issue may be too acute for crisis platforms used in community development. For example, Grandview-Woodland is a passionate community with imminent concerns; yet the application never launched because community leaders were unwilling to adopt it. Reliable methods of community practices such as petitions, community meetings, emails and rallies, were already being used for voicing opinion and taking action against a recent community draft plan proposed by city officials. In this case, community leaders may have anticipated dilution of their efforts or message fatigue among participants. Which brings me to my next point. The vital role of the organized crisis mapping community. We cannot overlook its ability to marshall an army of technical assistance that includes volunteers, on-the-ground organizations, international development teams and academics. This ecosystem of crisis mapping makes crisis platforms functional, which is missing when introducing new technologies for community development.
- In contrast to Grandview-Woodland, Acadia Park rapidly adopted the platform. We approached the group in the midst of an imminent rezoning of student family housing that had an unsatisfactory consultation process with the community. The application garnered support from the activists and community members because there was demand for a mapping-based method to express community concerns. It provided a safe environment for contributions. This good match is likely due to the acceptance by a tight knit community, which was open to new technology projects and channels of communication. Acadia Park was able to quickly deploy and offer feedback on the project and obtain submissions in a short time frame.
- Second, a chronic community development issue may not work as well as an acute driven issue on crisis mapping platforms due to development times. This finding was most apparent in Montreal, where a year was spent working with the community versus 2 months in Vancouver. Participants kept reorienting the goals of the application. There was also debate about the proper communication medium and the venue of contributions. These longer development times worked against a singular purpose like an event-driven crisis.
- Third, motivations to contribute to mapping platforms are driven by personal, social or technological goals and vary amongst users. People here could contribute because they perceive an outlet for creative and independent self-expression or evoke a pride of place. This could be interpreted in a disadvantaged place as future community aspirations. Furthermore, the motivations literature does not consider the intensity or urgency prompting those contributions as well as the clarity of the goals of the site. The needs were real to the members of all communities but were not viewed with the same urgency.
- Fourth, the connection between contribution and action is unclear. In the Lachine case, for example, a mother was concerned about her child’s safety because of a damaged playground. She asked whether her reporting to the mapping application would induce the city to fix the playground. In this particular case, a sense of immediacy of response is created by the application that does not guarantee an immediacy of action. And yet crisis mapping presumes action is tied to reporting because of the urgency of the event.
- Overall, we had mixed results for the use of a crisis mapping platform for community development. Often, community development events are highly complex issues that do not have clearly identifiable causative events. First, we found that the adoption of technology during acute community events was not always successful. Second, a chronic community development issue may not work as well as an acute driven issue on crisis mapping platforms due to development times and goal reorientation. Third, motivations for participating were driven by the sense of urgency of issues, depending on the communities these represented. And lastly, there is a presumption that the application guarantees an immediacy of action, which is often not the case. It is important to be mindful of these existing challenges because…. Ultimately, an application is only as good as the audience it can gain and the relevant content it can present.