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We characterize our methodological approach for developing the AGS/FMSO Global GIS Prototype and our model for Digital Regional Geography as Participatory Research Mapping-GIS, or PRM-GIS. We believe it is a robust way to develop more reliable digital spatial and statistical information on a country, region, or place from open-source information. We shall briefly characterize and define certain related approaches, and show how our approach is part of these traditions, yet distinctive.
Participatory Research (PR) and Participatory Research Mapping (PRM)
These related approaches are standard research approaches that recognize and respect the knowledge, abilities, and wisdom of local peoples to meet a particular objective. Our understanding follows the introduction and contents of a special issue Human Organization dedicated to participatory mapping in Latin America in 2003.
The forerunner of this approach is the social science methodology of participant observation, whereby the researcher lives in a community and participates in daily life while observing and collecting data by using questionnaires and interviews, an approach generally tied to positivistic standards of objectivity, validation, and non-partisanship. A key element is that the individual researchers, usually outsiders, collect and interpret the data through their own mental filters, mostly aiming at publishing the results.
Greater participation occurs in collaborative research, where the researcher works with local people to apply research for meeting the needs of a population, but the researcher (albeit with more humanistic concerns) continues to collects and interprets the information only now with cooperation of the locals who also see the research as desirable.
Participation reaches its highest levels when the “researched” is no longer the quiescent object of study, but now actually does the research. Participatory research, or PR, releases – through training – some part of the research itself to the local population. Not all participation in research is participatory in this sense. Participant observation and collaborative methodologies rarely release data collection and interpretation to locals. PR employs them directly in the research process, from design and implementation, to data collection and interpretation. Theorists and practitioners characterize it as collective, community-based investigation, education, and action for structural and personal transformation.
The participatory mapping, or PM, methodology rests on the philosophy that local populations have some of the best and most detailed knowledge of their surrounding lands and resources and that can be collected and interpreted geographically.
The methodology combines participatory research with cognitive mapping, fusing spatial and environmental knowledge with technical understanding and cartography. PM transforms cognitive knowledge into map, graphic, or written forms. The approach relies on local people’s knowledge of specific sites and geographic features. Community representatives are trained by and work with the participatory researcher or research/technical team to do parts of the research or applied work, often in collaboration with NGOs, state institutions, federations, or other organizations. Generally this has meant holding community meetings, administering questionnaires, recording place-names, drawing sketch maps, building diagrams, collecting field data, and plotting cognitive information about place directly onto standard cartographic sheets. Community representatives have easily mastered such skills, even collecting GPS observations, interpreting air photographs and satellite images, and processing data.
PM focuses on the dialectic between the community members, their representatives, and the researchers to transform the cognitive spatial knowledge into cartographic and descriptive information. The approach relies on the spatial abilities of local people who, while not accustomed to interpreting standard cartographic data, use ephemeral sketch maps and specific place-names to describe the lands and resources they use in their daily lives. The way they transform these cognitive images into hand-drawn lines in sketch maps is central to the approach. Place-names are used to locate and describe places, define boundaries, justify claims. The negotiating and harmonizing process of how trained surveyors work with the communities to reach consensus is central to the PM process, for agreeing on place-names, natural landmarks, zoning limits, boundary lines, land use regulations, and more. PM revolves around the exchange between the researcher/facilitator and the community representatives that develops more easily when there is a mutual understanding and trust.
Like participatory research, participatory mapping has two variants, one focusing on social action, the other on research. Participatory Action Research Mapping (PARM) links research with action to meet societal needs as part of learning and transformative processes in rural development; it’s not as much about producing maps as it is about providing communities with collective learning for assessing environmental or social concerns.
Participatory Research Mapping (PRM), the other variant that we use in México Indígena, applies the participatory methodology to make standard maps and descriptive information. Education, empowerment, and social action are positive project results when PRM is well done, but a deliberate focus is on intercultural communication and Western-style accuracy, validity, and standardization of the results. Combining cartography and ethnography, it focuses as much on the technical aspects of the mapmaking process as on the cultural context in which it occurs. The methodology harnesses cognitive geographical knowledge and involves the dialectic between the community representatives and researchers to transform this into standard maps and descriptive information, respecting the fallacies of map accuracy and authenticity. PRM provides a powerful new tool for understanding human-environment relationships that is capable of producing qualitative and quantitative, as well as scientific and humanistic results.
The PRM methodology aligns closely with the concerns of cultural and political ecology in geography and anthropology. PRM, like other approaches to political ecology, encompasses the shifting dialectic between society and resources and also between groups within society itself. The new way of mapping embodies the notion of progressive contextualization in the way it builds and validates geographic knowledge at various scales, from the individual to the community, regional, and state levels. Unlike other analyses in political ecology that deconstruct a situation for explanation, PM constructs knowledge beginning with cognitive mental constructs and converting these to consensual images and then into conventional map or descriptive forms. It is a bottom-up methodology because it builds on the understanding of place from the individual level, then moves to progressively larger social aggregates at progressively smaller scales, working from mental maps to regional maps or countrywide maps to gain understanding. This is foundational thinking for the development of our multi-scale, contextual analysis in México Indígena.
Participatory Research Mapping-GIS (PRM-GIS)
In creating open source intelligence for the AGS/FMSO prototype, what we are doing is really just good old-fashioned regional geography, using new digital technologies (primarily GPS and GIS) together with new humanistic methodologies (primarily participatory research mapping). Community participation in GIS is rapidly growing around the globe. Participation can be any level of involvement and is an ambiguous term at best. Our methodology reaches beyond “participation” to obtain “participatory” involvement of the local population, meaning local people not just involved but doing parts of the research and project administration. In this sense, we characterize our methodological approach Participatory Research Mapping-GIS (PRM-GIS), which employs a robust package of archival, field, and participatory approaches, as we outline below. Accordingly, we want to distinguish and distance our approach from broader Public Participation in GIS (PPGIS), which covers a less specific range of approaches, methods, and topics at the intersection of community interests and GIS technology.
Our methodology employs (1) archival, (2) traditional field research, and (3) participatory research data collection methods. The three approaches worked well together and no single one would have given as complete a picture as the combined view. Much of what we are trying to understand about Mexico’s property regime has undergone radical change that has not been studied. This type of original field research in a foreign country requires time and patience. First, we assessed the availability of cartographic and cadastral, as well as statistical and spatial data. This analysis and our subsequent and continuous acquisition of these cartographic and statistical datasets require enormous attention to institutional protocols and government policies. Success and gaining access depends on developing rapport and transparency with officials and fostering professional relationships and interest of local authorities, academics, students, and technical support personnel. “Open-access” works best when we are thoughtful in our requests and discuss our research needs with the institutional representatives most knowledgeable about the particular issue we confront.
The three approaches are inter-related in the structure of the México Indígena project, but are detailed separately here to show their specific importance in the collection and production of our results.
1. Archival Studies. The research team uses archival research examining published and unpublished documents and records, as well as on-line information on the Mexican real property regime and study area communities. We have an extensive set of published and unpublished digital archives on property regime and land use themes. We buy, process, and analyze representative samples of records, registries, and cadastral data.
2. Traditional Field Research. Our so-called “traditional” field research consists of interviews, questionnaires, and on-the-ground field observations and mapping to assess the real property regime and collect related information. The students use participant observation as they live in the communities for six to eight weeks, or longer. The researchers and students also work in the distinct government offices studying cadastral and registry information, seeing how it is produced and stored (on-line and off), and then assessing its accessibility, reliability and security.
3. Participatory Research Mapping. The research team trained and deployed local Teenek and Nahua community members to work as local investigators in data collection in nine communities in the Huasteca Potosina. The approach combined low-tech participatory field mapping, ethnographic field work, and archival studies with high-tech GPS (Global Positioning System) data collection and GIS analysis. Four UASLP students lived in four study areas where they each worked with either two or three communities. All total, the UASLP students worked in nine communities training and accompanying the local investigators to complete the community-level questionnaires, community sketch maps, parcel -level questionnaires, parcel sketch maps, GPS data collection, community histories, property disputes, and tenure regime patterns. We have found the PRM approach indispensable for assessing the Mexican property regime and for assessing the validity and accuracy of the cadastral records and land tenure at distinct geographic scales.