Report on Successful June Conference

Mapping For Sustainable Communities Conference

The Mapping for Sustainable Communities conference took place on the 17th June 2008 and was organised by University College London and London 21 Sustainability Network as part of their ‘Mapping Change for Sustainable Communities’ project funded under the UrbanBuzz programme and the London 21 Environmental Justice project funded by City Bridge.

The conference brought together over 110 participants from across the UK and Europe, including academics, practitioners and community groups who discussed the applications and developments within participatory mapping / participatory GIS (PGIS) in the UK. Major themes included key concepts and the theory of PGIS, practical approaches to PGIS, advantages and limitations of participatory mapping and PGIS, the need for PGIS to act as a catalyst for change, and community’s experiences of mapping projects.

The conference offered the unique opportunity for researches to exchange views on the effectiveness of various methodological approaches to PGIS as well as to openly discuss these approaches with practitioners working on the ground with communities. In addition, community groups shared experiences from their own mapping work, which is being supported by London 21 and UCL, allowing researchers and practitioners alike to learn from this experience.

This unique event offered an opportunity for individuals to meet and network with those outside their immediate field of work, bringing together the wide and varied interdisciplinary community working to develop and improve the exciting field of community and participatory mapping.

Below you can find a summary of the day.

Welcome and opening Address

Dr. Muki Haklay, a senior lecturer in GIS at University College London, and the project manager of the Mapping Change for Sustainable Communities project welcomed delegates, emphasising that the day offered an opportunity for dialogue between the diverse sectors involved in the design, utilisation and beneficiaries of mapping technologies. The fundamental importance of various processes involved in the communication of the diverse views of a community in their totality, and the associated tension between technological modifications and societal requirements.

www.slideshare.net/mukih/muki-haklay-ucl-mapping-for-sustainable-communities-170608

The morning session comprised presentations by a number of academic researchers: Steve Cinderby discussed his experience in GIS for Participation while Duncan Fuller put the mapping within the context of participatory geographies. Kieron Stanley from the Environment Agency questioned the need for all of this mapping which was followed by a panel discussion between participation and the use of technology.

Steve Cinderby, Deputy Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute at York

Duncan Fuller, Principal Lecturer in Human Geography, and Enterprise Fellow at Northumbria University

Kieron Stanley, Principal Social Scientist within the Environment Agency

Richard Kingston, Lecturer in urban and regional planning and GIS, University of Manchester
(Part of the panel discussion)

Sophie des Clers, Senior Research Fellow, UCL, Environmental Change Research Centre
(Part of the panel discussion)

Andrea Berardi, Lecturer in Environmental Information Systems Open University
(Part of the panel discussion)

Louise Francis, Mapping and Development Project Co-ordinator, London 21 Sustainability Network

The Benefits and limitations of Paper Mapping (Part of the panel discussion)
Louise highlighted the need for alternative approaches to PGIS, saying the use of paper mapping facilitates a more inclusive approach increasing the potential to engage with ‘harder to reach communities’.

Afternoon session

Chris Church the Chair of London 21 Sustainability Network opened the afternoon practitioners’ session and provided an introduction to the history of mapping within London 21. He went on to outline some of the challenges that lay ahead and announced a new social enterprise venture that will form a subsidiary branch to the London 21 Sustainability Network.

www.slideshare.net/mukih/chris-church-london-21-mapping-for-sustainable-communities-170608

Colleen Whitaker, Environmental Inequalities Project Co-ordinator, London 21 Sustainability Network

Chris Perkins, Senior Lecturer - University Map Curator, University of Manchester

Working Session 1

How can professional agencies work with and support community organisations and learn from community mapping?

Led by Chris Church, London 21, Sustainability Network

This session looked at the issues and opportunities associated with developing local maps. The basic techniques are fairly clear and have been trialled by the current London 21 project work. Some of the points that were raised include the need for local maps to build on and work with existing local action – otherwise they have little value as a project on their own. Maps should be developed as a tool to help strengthen local action and not just record it. While a map can be developed over a short period of time it needs ongoing support from the community involved to keep it going as a live resource.

Working Session 2

What empowerment are we doing with this information? What are the core questions that the research community should look at (technical, social, theory)? Do we need a theory for participatory mapping?

Led by Muki Haklay, University College London

During this session, some major questions that were put forward include the issue of identifying change and mapping it in a meaningful and useful way and the need to use community mapping to make communities proactive and not just reactive to changes in their area. There should be a balance between participation anxiety (have we included everyone? Are we doing the right thing?) and the importance of creating action plans and moving forward with local goals. There is also a need to move away from perception of absolute truth or specific descriptions of reality. In participatory mapping we need to highlight local perceptions as they shape the local worldview.  Some issues were raised about the UK context of PGIS and the need to engage the developers in engaging with local communities.

Working Session 3

How to create your own participatory mapping project – techniques used in community mapping; a discussion of the experience and potential benefits

Led by Colleen Whitaker and Louise Francis, London 21 Sustainability Network, and the artist Christian Nold

This session provided delegates with the opportunity to carry out perception mapping of both noise and the surrounding environment. Questions that arose after this exercise include the influence and limitation of prescribing words to describe noise; the potential of using different words unrelated to sound was suggested as an alternative method. The benefit of using noise mapping to incorporate the views and impact of noise on people with hearing impairments was expressed and suggested that this should be further explored. There was an emphasis on the value in collating local perceptions as a way of demonstrating similar view points amongst individuals within a community.  The question of how to use participatory mapping methods in the absence of any base maps was raised, with various methods of map creation discussed.

Community Showcase

As a way of introducing the communities delegates were given the opportunity to explore each community’s involvement with the projects via poster presentations and open questions.

www.slideshare.net/mukih/community-showcase-mapping-for-sustainable-communities-170608 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=17hR_YfrK-I&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMmROqHiua4&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2m8Hge4UBE&feature=related