Impact of participatory mapping projects on contributors: Case Study Pokhara, Nepal

Keywords: participatory mapping, vgi, spatial enablement, open mapping, neogeography, nepal, geoawareness
Abstract Type: Lightning Paper Abstract

Abstract

Community participatory modes of geospatial data collection and VGI (Goodchild 2007) have matured in the last ten years and there are concrete examples of communities that have participated in contributing geographic information (Palen 2015). Further it has been established that the data generated through these participatory modes can play an important role in enhancing community resilience (Liu et al. 2018). However, claims around long-term spatial enablement of communities have not been critically studied nor validated through the recording of experiences of community members. With dozens of organizations working with communities, particularly in the global south (Pitidis et al. 2021) and hailing the importance of this new digital spatial data it is important to step back and see if the contributing members have experienced spatial enablement in the form of ability to leverage the collected data to transform their lives. By looking at the case of Secondary Cities (2C) Pokhara mapping project in Nepal, this paper seeks to understand the impact participatory mapping projects have on participants contributing geographic data while being mapped in the short and long term and how future projects can ensure greater engagement.