From: Deepsea Dawn Date: December 5, 2007 10:05:11 AM PST To: ppgis@lists.oregonstate.edu Subject: last transmission Greetings PPGIS gang, For those of you who were able to stay on the line for the very end of the discussion, you heard that Dave Unwin and WUN colleagues will have all resources from the entire term - each Marratech video archive, PPT file, and questions file for each lecture - online at the WUN web site by next week. In the interim, I still offer my screen shots from today (a few slides were definitely missed), as well as my personal notes along with the chatroom log. Thank you all for being a great class, and for exploring this very vibrant and growing area of GIS research! Cheers and happy holidays! Dawn -------------------- Attending? Maria, Wiley, Susan, Scott, Elina, Eugene, Jason, Paris Poore and Chrisman 2006 annals paper, a recent good one to look at message of Pickles' Ground Truth - technology is invented, discover, desinged, implemented deployed by humans - social and cultural underpinnings are impt - we don't have cyborgs yet - [Dawn] and GIS is not "artificial intelligence" no matter how much people want it to be! Tim to Mike Goodchild at 2004 GIScience Meeting: PPGIS is big b/c let's take the science and then bring in 2 GISs instead of one to design - if the big topic is designing a single GIS, then how much bigger is it to design MULTIPLE GISs, taking into account multiple perspectives? Tim considers himself a "radical" GIS person, rather than "critical" GIS - nature of society and technology need to fundamentally change (same as critical though isn't it?)?? slide 9 has very good definitions grassroots - Sarah Elwood in this category collaborative process - group process - re-designs of participation, different models of participation, stakeholder-, marginalized-, and other kinds of group processes new technology (web) GIS - as opposed to face-to-face meetings, the Internet is changing the face of social interaction (chat rooms, etc.) all 3 of these interweave and interact, even though they are niches - they are NOT separate activities what are the numbers in the Venn diagram?? Laxmi's book under contract with Guillford may be the first significant PPGIS book character of people, how technology is used, and nature of interaction nothing gets done in the Pacific NW because we are so interested in process :-) GIS where the "S" is systems, science, service, and society PPGIS is where the social scientists are highly participatory, perhaps moreso than in any other research area of GIS DISCUSSION: it's just maps, not GIS? Tim - GIS is spatial analysis, communications technology, decisions technology, visualization - integration of those is probably as sophisticated as any other technology out there - see letsimprovetransportation.org U.S. and U.K. differences - where is Europe in Tim's synthesis of the history of PPGIS? - goes back to the history of GIS - Marble and Tomlinson in 1963, report to ONR, first use of term of GIS, tobler's 53 article on computer mapping, also funded by ONR - then Canada GIS - so huge in north america because we are bottom up, chaotic, complicated in terms of governance activities - this mandates that GI and distribution be examined - ESRI momentum - Jack's father was an orange farmer, therefore big property available for ESRI headquarters and did not need outside funding - market mechanism is so huge - federal level in U.S., we have tax dollars paying for everything that is available for the asking (at least before 911), as opposed to the Ordnance Survey in the U.K. where data available only at cost (even though it is more detailed data) 15 years ago, Seattle named as PPGIS capital of the world! development studies issue Tim: every human being in the world is marginalized - what about the nature of children in terms of their voice - all fine for PPGISers to focus on grassroots but ... [didn't catch rest of impassionate discussion here - had to put Lydia the doggie out] cultural is the broader based term for putting PPGIS into a particular setting representative vs. participatory democracy - representative and sampling, Robin Smith, in his dissertation - - how to sample when accomodating lots of groups of people? Tim: there is a form of representative and deliberative governance - both are participatory in different ways - deliberative is participatory democracy (individual level, and voice is heard) representativeness - stat sampling - Tim's studies in transportation have sought to be diverse in *nature* of the public they are sampling, but cannot be truly *representative* (even by campaign laws in WA) So, for example, nature of neighborhood took precedence over age, education level, sex - but didn't get as many people from northern and southern counties so not as representative in sheer numbers of people, but what numbers they have are in those diverse categories statistically representative is different from idea of representative democracy vs. participatory democracy Robin- who is king? in his research he hold people to be king over technology - tries to look at real activities of local authorities who are trying to understand what people hold important in context of e-government - real people, real problems - were not many other PPGIS studies in this category to guide him when doing his Ph.D. [8:10 AM] Dave: please type in questions and comments here .... [8:11 AM] Louise: Please check the Documents menu to make sure 'Lead Page Changes' is not checked (apart from Tim) [8:12 AM] Dave: does anyone know the author? [8:12 AM] Jason: Isn't there an overarching scope of study here that goes back in time even further, addressing the social, economic & cultural concerns with maps in general - and GIS is just a little side-trip on the bigger issue of conveying ideas through mapping ? [8:13 AM] Dave: It might be Trevor Davies? [8:13 AM] Robin (ICOSS): Not sure... I thought it was Trevor et al. that started the "participatory" term [8:13 AM] Steve: This is something we talked about in the I-17 programme too [8:13 AM] Robin (ICOSS): Trevor Harris [8:13 AM] Dave: whoops, yes Harris [8:16 AM] Dave: almost all of this history is US --- can colleagues this side of the pond confirm that this was the case? [8:17 AM] Steve: Well, we (@Leeds) were programming web-based PPGIS systems for the nuclear waste stuff back in 1995 and writing in papers/conferences - does that count Dave? [8:18 AM] Dave: of course and thnaks for thr reminder. [8:19 AM] Steve: ..and of course I was trying to peddle such a system to NIREX for use in public inquiry from 1986 during my thesis research [8:21 AM] "Deepsea Dawn": It's truly a great site! [8:22 AM] Muki: Andy Hudson @ CASA was looking at collaborative planning in 1996 or so. Robert Laurini also done various activities in Frnce. When I started looking at it in 1997, it looks that in the US people are taking more 'theoreticaly' informed approach to PPGIS and in the UK more practical experiments [8:23 AM] Steve: Agreed... we (in the UK) were perhaps following that more "suck it and see" approach ... Action Research I believe it's called [8:23 AM] Dave: it surprises me that we have no Scandinavian examples .... [8:24 AM] Steve: Rene Reitsma? [8:24 AM] Robin (ICOSS): a lot of their work is embedded in e-government activities that were quite developed, e.g. relating to town planning in smal areas as part of government works [8:24 AM] Muki: For good European overview, see Laurini - information systems for urban planning - a hyeprmedia collaborative approach 2001 [8:24 AM] UiO: systems of governance here are very top down so there aren't many opprotunities for participatory processes [8:25 AM] UiO: but I am starting to look into the at the municiple level [8:26 AM] York:SIL: I guess our interest in involving refugees/disaspora in post-conflict reconstruction planning is dealing with maginalised people ... [8:27 AM] Muki: Question for Tim: in the history, the whole explosion of PGIS, PPGIS, GIS-P in development studies is missing. Today, PPGIS.net is running from the development side of the story. How do you see the interaction between the development approach and the western world approach to participatory GIS? [8:29 AM] Jason: It will be interesting to see how other societies that are just undergoing democratic reform and industrialization latch on to PPGIS as a means of advancing their marginalized populations. We probably have more tools for the "people" today, than our (U.S.) social reformers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. [8:29 AM] Robin (ICOSS): question- should we consider the roles of GI in less technical contexts? We talked about Participatory Approaches Using GI at Spoleto- my work points to the role of offline and online tools in participation- examples could be the BBC's Domesday Project, Participatory Rural Appraisal.. as well as work using GIS to analyse participatory activities etc.. [8:31 AM] York:SIL: I think Robin's point is important. There is a tendency to lose sight of the real problem through over interest in technology ... [8:31 AM] Jason: York: concur [8:31 AM] Rina: yes [8:31 AM] York:SIL: and much of the technology we have today is under used [8:33 AM] Steve: How do we better "push" our advances in the science and development to the users and practioners? [8:33 AM] Muki: Can we actually clasify not pieces but researchers? Each of the people that are working in this area got certain strengths that lead to certain position within the diagram... [8:34 AM] York:SIL: In answer to Steve, surely by getting involved with them in their problems, rather than the progblems we would rather study? [8:34 AM] Steve: yes... but horses and water comes to mind [8:34 AM] York:SIL: of course [8:36 AM] Robin (ICOSS): Again, Spoleto outputs asked to pull togeter practitioner and research materials- especially as so much related work is done outside academia [8:37 AM] Steve: my pleasure! [8:38 AM] "Deepsea Dawn": Very interesting that not as much has been done on culture? [8:38 AM] Steve: Naiong is working this, yes? [8:38 AM] Rina: Role of neoliberalism needs to be examined more overtly specially in urban grassroots ppgis [8:39 AM] "Deepsea Dawn": We have so many "sub-cultures" in various levels of society to examine w/regard to this. I would be interested in hearing more about Naiong's work. Thanks [8:41 AM] Robin (ICOSS): Just remembered- some good work done in Portugal too- Xana Fonseca et al. etc. [8:42 AM] Jason: It is very important to understand State and Local laws regarding public participation when construcitng a PPGIS [8:42 AM] Jason: We have to deal with that in Oregon quite often [8:43 AM] Jason: That would be one suggestion for developing an answer to Tim's first question - Define the political and legal bounds... [8:44 AM] Jason: Define your end goal [8:44 AM] Robin (ICOSS): sampling and public participation are highly problematic in local government contexts [8:45 AM] Jason: Robin: A key flaw of representative democracy... [8:45 AM] Robin (ICOSS): because it relates to the complications of participatory and representative democracy and relatd teories [8:46 AM] York:SIL: the sociology perspective is probably a rather neglected area but which impinges significantly on ppgis? [8:51 AM] RichardK: That's because GIS use in Local Authorities is historically so dis-jointed in the UK and problems over the cosat of data access. Corporate vs. Departmental GIS [8:52 AM] Elina: what about the socio-cultural climates of both countries when PPGIS became relevant? Has there been much discussion on this aspect of PPGIS history? [8:52 AM] Steve: Will Google maps etc. change that around? [8:52 AM] Robin (ICOSS): I think Richard and my comments about the policy context is relevant too- since the 1960s participation is part of planning law in the UK (for example) [8:53 AM] Steve: ...but still little used [8:53 AM] York:SIL: Tim has, I think, just hit the key reason: the different approach to IPR [8:53 AM] Robin (ICOSS): if not the work of Snow in the 19th century if we count out the database/computer component [8:53 AM] RichardK: Google Maps is sratiung to change this from the University side but LAs are not really getting in to it yet. My new EPSRC SURegen project will investiaget this though. [8:54 AM] RichardK: that should say starting not sratiung [8:58 AM] pathfinder: some marginalized people may find it hard to understand 3D map, also maps or landscape in virtual environment [8:58 AM] Jason: So how do we develop a "PPGIS" in the context of a representative democracy ? [8:58 AM] York:SIL: which is one reason we need to explore alternative representations [8:59 AM] Robin (ICOSS): maybe we should focus on participatory democracies first before we consider representative models [8:59 AM] Elina: Sorry, Peter who? [8:59 AM] Steve: kyem [8:59 AM] Robin (ICOSS): it is the theoretical notion of wha composes "being representative" between statistical and political perspectives where the problems lie [9:03 AM] Maria: Jason, in Participatory democracies you are expected to have public participation and involve people in the policy process, while in Parliamentary democracies, decisions are made at a more abstract level, I think [9:03 AM] shelley: how do i save what is on the board, my sound is off, thanks [9:03 AM] Robin (ICOSS): Yes, Maria, there are varying roles of representatives and how they intereact with the public- from voting to focus groups ----------- Dawn Wright | Professor | Department of Geosciences Oregon State University | Corvallis, OR 97331-5506 http://dusk.geo.orst.edu | 541-737-1229 phone | 541-737-1200 fax