MAPPING ABLANKSPOT

Introducing OpenStreetMap to Ugunja, western Kenya

º º

This  map  has  been  created  from  OpenStreetMap  content,  collected  in  part  by  the  UCRC  in  partnership  with  the  Ugunja  Research  Team  (Supported  by  the  Royal  Geographical  Society).  This  map    intended  to  be  100%  ac-­curate  geographically,  but  rather  shows  a  representation  of  the  area  using  both  GPS  and  local  knowledge.  The  content  of  this  map  uses  OpenStreet-­Map  data  available  as  of  the  7/4/12.  As  data  is  added  or  changed  to  the  OpenStreetMap  online,  this  hard  copy  will  no  longer  be  up  to  date.  The  online  version  can  be  found  by  going  to   and  searching  for  Ugunja.    Further  information  on  this  project  can  be  found  at  the  following:  Ugunja  Research  Team:  ugunja.wordpress.com  UCRC:  www.ugunja.org/new/  

 

Map of Ugunja town 0o10’52.12 North 34o1747.17 East

Ugunja is a market town on the Kisumu-Busia highway. It is located in the Siaya District, Nyanza Province, in Western Kenya.

Map produced from OpenStreetMap in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. All data is correct as of April 2012 and was collected in part by volun-teers at the Ugunja Community Resource Centre. An online, up-to-date version of this map can be found at: www.openstreetmap.org

Map supplied by Ugunja Research Team, supported by Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and the ICT4D collective at Royal Holloway, University of London. Learn more at: www.ugunja.wordpress.com

1IMAGE: Map centred on Ugunja town centre. Exported from OpenStreetMap.com in October 2011

mapping a blankspot: introducing OSM to Ugunja, western Kenya

his research project aims to evaluate how map-ping can be used to enhance rural develop-ment in and around the market town of Ugun-ja, located on the main Kisumu-Busia highway in western Kenya. We worked in partnership with the Ugunja Community Resource Centre (UCRC) who have developed a GIS mapping

project, in various forms, since 1998. The mapping project was initi-ated as a means of documentation to help people understand their resources and to help in decision-making. However, the project had become stagnant and failed to progress due to a lack of funding, a major loss of data and the use of inaccessible proprietary software. As a result, the research team took on the role of facilitators in the mapping process. We suggested a shift to OpenStreetMap (OSM) – a free and open source online mapping tool – as a means of overcom-ing barriers associated with the existing ArcGIS project. We adopt a compositionist (Latour, 2010) approach to ask how the Ugunja map-ping project is composed and how it might be better composed. We do this through four key themes: i) community mapping ii) appropri-ate technology; iii) mapping in action; and iv) scaling up.

All research was conducted in partnership with the Ugunja Communi-ty Resource Centre (UCRC) with the kind support of the ICT4D collective at Royal Holloway, University of London and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), who awarded the team a Gumby Award.

Acknowledgements are given to our academic advisors: David Hollow, Dorothea Kleine, David Simon, Tim Unwin and Katie Willis.

t

BEN PARFITT Managed the team’s publications and communications. Graduated from Royal Holloway, University of Lon-don in 2011 with a Geography BSc. In 2012, completed an MSc in Environ-ment, Science and Society at UCL. Cur-rently working as a Writer (Educational Resources) at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

OLLY PARSONS Led the team both in securing funding and whilst in the field. Holds a BSc in Geography and an MSc in Practicing Sustainable Devel-opment from Royal Holloway, Univer-sity of London. A specialist in ICT4D and post-conflict development, Olly is currently working at the Royal Geo-graphical Society (with IBG).

JAMIE GREGORY With first aid quali-fications under his belt, Jamie kept the team out of trouble. He graduated with Ben and Olly from Royal Holloway, Uni-versity of London in 2011. Since return-ing from East Africa, he has worked in the education sec-tor both at home and abroad. He is currently stationed at a school in Thai-land.

PUBLISHEDJanuary 2013

CONTENTSIntroduction (p5 - p10)Methodology (p11 - p14)Discussion (p15 - p22)Conclusion (p23 - p26)

ONLINE www.ugunja.wordpress.comvimeo.com/ugunjaresearch@ugunjaresearch

CONTACTGeneral: ollyparsons@hotmail.comPublications: benparf@gmail.com

ENOCK CHITERI A youth project officer at the Ugunja Community Resource Centre, Enock worked close-ly with the team in 2011 and could now be considered one of western Kenya’s most prolific OSM mappers. He has kept the research team up-to-date on his work, which involves speaking about OSM on a national level.

NASHON OMONDI With a degree in Communications, Nashon volunteers at the Ugunja Com-munity Resource Centre and has recently opened an ICT shop in the town. Among other things, he took on the task of conduct-ing interviews and surveys, as well as mapping much of the local area. His family hosted the research team.

The team

2

an executive summaryof the research project

pproaching this six-week research project in-formed by theories of critical cartography, we felt rather ill-equipped. Instead of focussing on the power ‘behind’ the map, we sought to ana-lyse the socio-technical composition of the map-ping project through practice. This involved ask-ing how the map was produced through social

practises, interactions with technology, and realities on the ground.We began research by conducting two surveys: one ‘ICT-use’ survey

of 100 people and one ‘local issues’ survey of 37 participants. Together, these surveys sought to understand what local issues a map needed to address and how the mapping data may best be disseminated to a large strata of the local population. Greatest insight into the mapping project was gained through particapation in and facilitation of the act of mapping, which was reflected upon through daily research diaries (produced individually) and weekly research summaries (produced as a team). This participatory research was only possible once the map-ping project had switched to OpenStreetMap (OSM), since the pre-ex-isting ArcGIS project had become stagnant as a result of inappropriate technology. Interviews with local officials, academics in the region and practitioners (MapKibera and Map Uganda) in East Africa provided context and raised questions as to the future of the map.

One of the greatest questions we continually asked ourselves in the process of this research was: what is our role in the mapping project? As

a

CREATING AN IDEAWe volunteered at the ICTD London 2010 conference. Here we came across a pres-entation by MapKibera, a project to map Africa’s largest slum. This sounded like a great project, but what impact was it having? Inspired by the people we’d met, we were keen to involve ourselves beyond the confines of our undergraduate course.

FINDING A CASE STUDYThe British Foreign Office advised against working in Kibera. Our plans had to be adapted - quickly! One of our advisors knew about the Ugunja mapping project. Contact was soon made and a partner-ships began to develop.

8th August: Introductory meeting at UCRC offices. Visited UCRC-affiliated centres around the town.

9th August: Introduction to GIS project. Had to re-install ArcGIS to view the limited data that existed.

12th August: Finished collecting 100 surveys on ICT use in Ugunja.

27th August: Visited a Youth Forum to conduct surveys with under 18s. Then joined the kids club to collect 20 mind maps of Ugunja.

29th August: Suggested the UCRC uses OSM to rejuvenate the project. The UCRC team started mapping roads that afternoon.

30th August: Tracked larger roads by driving in the car with a GPS.

31st August: Went into the centre of town to trace the small streets.

3

three recent graduates, we approached this research with an academic perspective, but with a desire to get involved and to help the project move forward. However, the UCRC staff often looked to us to lead the project and we had to step back, adopting the role of facilitators at most. Having seen little to no mapping in the first three weeks of our six-week research project, we suggest a the shift to OSM, which the lo-cal UCRC staff took on with very little assistance beyond the two days initial training.

By switching to OSM, we greatly shifted the composition of the mapping project. The socio-technical network became open to more possibilities as a result of the change in software. This improved issues assocated with storage of data, access to software and the level of skill required to map. The open-source nature of OSM also opened up ex-citing opportunities for sharing data and collaborative map-making.Finding that efforts to engage with ‘community stakeholders’ did little to move the mapping project forwards, we question the very premise of ‘community mapping’ projects. Instead, we focus on the ability for a mapping project to make connections beyond the confines of Ugunja town. Drawing on the efforts of other projects in East Africa, we sug-gest that ‘scaling up’ can be acheived by ‘joining up’ existing mapping projects. As the first free and open map of the earth begins to cover the developing world’s ‘blankspots’ academics should turn their attention to the dynamics of collaborative map-making both ‘in the field’ and ‘from afar’. We do not accept that the latter alienates the former.

MAKING CONNECTIONS Having made contacts for a core case study, we continued to network. Despite our plans for research in Kibera falling through, we kept in touch with our con-tacts at MapKibera. We also met Reinier from MapUganda by posting about our research on social LinkedIn.

DOING RESEARCH We had to be flexible. Plans carefully constructed in London went out of the window when in rural Kenya! We tried a number of methods, some of which failed. But that’s all part of the process. Research diaries ensured that we always had evi-dence to draw upon.

ENGAGING WITH PEOPLE We presented a poster, a workshop and opening keynote at the RGS-IBG Explore 2011 and 2012 conferences. We blogged, tweeted and wrote magazine articles. We also sent a large printed map to Ugunja.

17th August: Presented report to UCRC staff and recieved positive feedback.

19th August: Interviewed Cleopa Otieno, National Coordinator of KenTel.

22nd August: Pilot study for second suvey (on local is-sues) with a farmers group. Respondents were all over 50 years old and only spoke the local dialect, Luo.

23rd August: Interviewed a member of the Kenya Land Alliance.

24th August: Completed 11 local issues surveys at the Ugunja constituency women’s meeting.

25th August: Mapped our first feature on OSM - Ugunja’s taxi rank!

10th September: Joined a MapUganda mapping day at Ugandan Christian University in Mukono, 15km outside Kampala.

13th September: Met academics at Maseno University to find out more about ICT4D initiatives in the area.

15th September: Interviewed MapKibera. Discussed shared difficulties.

4

he act of mapping has changed as much in the last few years as it ever has (Gartner, 2009). Technologi-cal advances have digitised the process and allowed a more egalitarian cartograph-

ic practice to emerge. Arguably, the lay public were first able to become cartographers in their own right when, on 1st May 2000, President Bill Clinton agreed that the US government was to end its policy of intentionally degrading civilian GPS signals (Of-

fice of Science and Technology Policy, 2000). Over-night this had a dramatic impact on the availability of geographic data and the price of GPS receivers had dropped to as little as $100 by mid-2001. Prior to this shift, accurately mapping the Earth was seen as the preserve of the highly skilled and the highly equipped. It was the role of the surveyor, the cartog-rapher or the geographer to map the world.

Mapping has, therefore, undergone a ‘widespread democratisation’ whereby little technical skill is now needed to map a space, thus blurring the previous distinction between consumers and producers of a

t

Chapter 1: Introduction

Recent technological innovations have opened up a world of new possibilities for the public to engage in mapping. For the town of Ugunja, this means creating digital maps of their community.

5

map (Gartner, 2009). Much attention has since been paid to the concepts of community mapping as a tool for emancipation and development. Commu-nity mapping as a response to the elitism of conven-tional cartography may be seen as a form of ‘counter-mapping’ (Peluso, 1995) – it attempts to challenge, undermine and invert existing power structures. Although there is a body of critical analysis into the

relationship between maps and power, there remains a

limited understanding of community mapping - of this presumed inversion of power. As Parker (2006: 470) notes: “questions remain regard-ing the composition of community maps, how they should be evaluated, and the relationship between community maps and power.”

What is widely understood about community mapping, however, is that technology alone is un-likely to overcome complex socio-political prob-lems. As Crampton (2010) notes: “community par-

6

IMAGE: Mapping day at Ugunda Christian University in Mukono

ticipatory GIS [is] not likely to provide solutions for underserved populations to bootstrap themselves out of poverty.” The failure of community mapping to serve the poor is a question of ICTs in general. The field of ICT for development (ICT4D) widely recognises that technology is simply a tool that will only ignite processes of development or emancipa-tion according to related socio-political dimensions. It is thus important that we focus not on the excite-ment of technological innovation but that we place an emphasis on the ‘for development’ (Unwin, 2009). It is with this in mind that we look to reframe ‘com-munity mapping’ as ‘mapping for development’.

Critical cartographyWhilst there has been a postcolonial critique of map-ping – a critique of the imperialist project which assumed that the earth it territorialised was in fact previously a blank space – very little mapping has occurred in the developing world since. The maps found within the local government offices of Kenya are often branded with the insignia of the British government or the British colonial office, the geo-graphical data still engrained with the beliefs that informed the British colonial project. The maps we were able to access from the local Constituency De-velopment Fund, for example, only showed major population centres and major roads. There remained a great lack of up-to-date geographical data of the Ugunja. Some data may exist but it is not known or accessed by the people living, or the organisations and ministries operating, in the town of Ugunja, and in its surrounding area.

Over recent decades a number of ‘critical’ ap-proaches to cartography have been developed. Brian

Harley (1988) has been a foundational thinker for this movement, stating that: “maps often reinforce the status quo or the interests of the powerful, and we should investigate the historical and social con-text in which mapping has been employed.” This set a new ‘critical’ research agenda (Dodge, Kitchin and Perkins, 2009). Maps are now understood as socially constructed and are, consequently, imbued with power, meanings and value (Harley, 1988). His-torically, cartography has been a tool of colonisa-tion, whereby Western explorers ‘civilised’ supposed blank spaces, translating local knowledge into a tool that would serve the coloniser (Edney, 1997). Maps are understood as political representations of the in-terests and agendas that created them (Wood, 1992). According to such an approach, the role of the re-searcher is to semiotically deconstruct these ‘codes’ to reveal the power lurking ‘behind the map’ (Wood, 1992).

From critique to compositionWe had initially intended to adopt a ‘critical approach’ in order to dissect and offer positive criticism to help strengthen the mapping project in Ugunja. However, as we began to undertake our research, we found this approach inherently unhelpful. By continuing to break the project down theoretically, trying to get at the power lurking behind (Wood, 1992), we felt that we wouldn’t be able to do anything useful or con-structive. Instead, we would have simply reached a ‘ruinous’ stage (Latour, 2010). Critical cartography has been built off the back of a body of work that focuses largely on historical examples. When try-ing to analyse a small-scale contemporary mapping project, we simply believe such an approach has ‘run

IMAGES: The market town of Ugunja sits on a main highway but was not mapped in sufficient detail

7

BRUNO LATOUR (2010: 475-6): “With critique, you may debunk, reveal, unveil, but only as long as you establish, through this process of creative destruction, a privileged access to the world of reality behind the veils of appearances … By contrast, for compositionism, there is no world of beyond. It is all about immanence … It is really a mundane question of having the right tools for the right job. With a hammer (or a sledge ham-mer) in hand you can do a lot of things: break down walls, destroy idols, ridicule prejudices, but you cannot repair, take care, assemble, reassem-ble, stitch together… compositionists believe that there are enough ru-ins and that everything has to be reassembled piece by piece.”

out of steam’. Latour (2010) offers another, more pro-gressive approach by proposing ‘composition’ as an alternative to critique.

We had to ask ourselves, what was there to get be-hind? Such a question simply didn’t make any sense in the grounded reality of Ugunja. We needed to re-frame the world, not as ‘out there’, but as something that we immersed in and fully a part of it (Whatmore, 2006). We are situated very much within the spaces of the world, constantly interacting, intertwining and engaging through bodily involvement rather than viewing the world through a “detached gaze” (An-derson & Wylie, 2009: 324). As such, it is important to understand how the maps are produced through social practices, technological negotiations and two decades of mixed fortunes.

Our approachIt was necessary to understand how the Ugunja map-ping project had operated over time. Conceptually, we ask how the mapping project is composed and how it might be better composed in the future. In

compiling this report from an academic perspective, we hope to offer a theoretical discussion that will better inform the Ugunja mapping project and other

similar efforts. But, from the outset, we wanted to have an overtly practical contribution to the project wherever necessary. In doing so, we engage with both theory and practice. Coming from an academ-ic perspective, we wished to do more than simply analyse the project, we hope to actively contribute to it. We wanted to move the Ugunja mapping pro-ject forward and sought

to directly engage in conversation with practitioners throughout East Africa. Though it is recognised that each mapping project will, of course, face its own challenges, we believe that there are some universal lessons to be learnt for the ‘mapping for development’ community. This report makes no grand claim about having discov-ered such universal lessons. Instead, we hope that by sharing the story of the Ugunja mapping project, our experiences can be of some use for academics and practitioners alike. As opposed to some better-known mapping projects, Ugunja stands as an ex-ample of a small-scale rural mapping project, whose journey has rarely been smooth.

Africa as a historical blankspotThe cartographic history of Africa is closely linked with the imperial and colonial aspirations of Euro-pean powers. Many people view the Berlin Confer-

8

ence of 1884-5 as the foundation of the modern geo-graphical landscape of Africa and thus the maps we have today. However the turning point for cartogra-phy of Africa came in the so called “Age of Reason” in the maps of the French school, notably De L’Isle (1700) and d’Anville (1727). A scientific approach to map making developed at this time and the assump-tions and legends of the pre-enlightenment era were replaced by rigorous scientific methodology and trustworthy knowledge based upon empirical sci-ence. This period of cartography is identifiable most notably by its focus upon the construction of topo-graphic representations of the African continent.

Maps were honed to the needs of the corporate world and centred upon both available natural re-sources and the trans-port networks required for their trade. Little thought was given to the human landscape of the continent. When the colonial period started, there was a marked shift in cartography away from a purely physical topographic represen-tation of space towards less accurate but more human-focused map-ping techniques. Map-ping in the colonial era was a tool of civic administration. Maps focused on local popu-lation centres as well as land ownership. Cadas-tral maps were created demarcating townships and building plots, roads, railways and re-serve land. This was the information required for the imposition of colonial control.

Mapping todayUp until 1985, the British Directorate of Overseas Surveys provided aerial photography for the accu-rate mapping of Africa. However, these maps are not accessible to many Kenyans and, in Ugunja, the various ministries had just one map - an outline of their constituency, the area within this border being largely blank. Even today, much of Africa remains unmapped in spite of a richness of culture and life on the ground. Lying just five kilometers from the cen-tre of Nairobi, Kibera – home to a widely estimated one million people – appears on many government maps as either a blank spot or as the forest it once

was. The township’s name itself, translated from the local dialect of Nubian, means ‘forest’.

In November 2009 the ‘MapKibera’ project be-gan to use GPS technology to allow some residents to produce the first free and open source map of their community. This became one of the most well-known mapping projects in the developing world and the informal settlement is now recognised by several online maps. This act of mapping appropriat-ed an otherwise ignored space. Much as Kiberia had gone unrecognised, the town of Ugunja and its sur-rounding areas remained largely blank on all public maps (with the exception of some detail on Google maps) up until August 2011. By mapping Ugunja in significant detail, it is hoped that the space will be

publicly appropriated and that its residents may derive some benefit from this process.

Ugunja Communi-ty Resource CentreThe Ugunja mapping project is co-ordinated by the Ugunja Com-munity Resource Cen-tre (UCRC). UCRC was initially established to provide the local com-munity with access to information and to de-velop a range of pro-grams for alleviating poverty within the re-gion. It now has a cen-tral office in the town which aims to provide technical solutions to

a number of affiliated institutions including a church, health centre,

school and microfinance cooperative. A number of weekly community meetings for youth, women and farmers feed issues up to the UCRC main office staff and volunteers, who then seek to provide solutions. A key focus for the mapping project is to advocate on behalf of these groups according to the issues that they raise.

UCRC aims to use the mapping project as a means by which the community can understand itself through visual representation. UCRC Head of Programmes, Charles Ogada, explained: “We can present a map to the community and get them to share their feelings about that space. With other stakeholders people can start discussing whether something can be improved. We are using mapping as an opportunity for participation of all the target

Location of Ugunja within Kenya. Credit: Friends of Ugunja

9

groups that we are working with.” UCRC aims to make information available so that people can sup-port the work of the Central Development Fund (CDF) or to demand change. “We want to use map-ping to involve people, to lobby for an engagement of resources and for people to appreciate their space,” Charles explained.

Mapping UgunjaThe Ugunja mapping project was first initiated in 1998 when Charles attended a mapping conference in Nairobi which was concerned with introducing ArcGIS, 3D modeling and Georeferencing to the country. Charles saw potential in digital mapping and felt that ArcGIS was the only option on offer that lay within the UCRC capabilities. “GPS was not very cheap but we have friends that could donate so we went with the GPS. It turns out we had a volunteer with experience in ArcView and she trained a few of us,” Charles explained. ESRI donated an initial soft-ware license for ArcGIS, however UCRC were una-ble to purchase later versions. “It was far beyond our means as the mapping project has not officially been funded,” Charles explained. The mapping project has been kept going by volunteers who come and work on it, provide technical know-how and sometimes donate hardware. Most notably, an Australian vol-unteer visited Ugunja in 1999, 2003 and 2006 to de-velop the project. The first time was a “preliminary, fact-finding mission”. The second time she came with GPS and ArcView software, and trained UCRC staff for six months. The third time she visited, the vol-unteer looked at the weak elements of the mapping projects and sought to strengthen it.

The Ugunja mapping project has received only ad hoc funding from individuals and operates on the limited capabilities of UCRC. As such, much data had been lost and the project had become stagnant, failing to progress by the time we arrived in sum-mer 2011. At its height, the mapping project is said to have had data on key health units, waste disposal sites, water points and dilapidated brick-making sites. Physical features such as rivers, boundaries, soils and lakes were also mapped to a limited extent, although much of this data no longer existed (due to unstable data stores) by the time we conducted our research in summer 2011. Having observed a lack of recent development in the mapping project, we suggested a shift to OpenStreetMap (OSM) – a free and open source online mapping tool. We provided training in the use of OSM and the shift in approach was taken up with great enthusiasm by the local team of three UCRC mappers who were fully motivated by the tangible results they were able to see. Within three weeks, the town of Ugunja had been mapped at

considerable detail but remained largely focussed on the town centre.

OpenStreetMap (OSM)

With the development of new technologies and the opening up of the GPS network there had been a democratisation of geographical data. The defini-tion of a cartographer shifted. The crowd-sourced and open nature of OSM has allowed geographical data to be used in new and exciting ways. The use of data is no longer restricted by cost and private own-ership – geographical data has become part of the new digital commons. OSM has opened up a space for knowledge sharing, for providing geographical information to be used by communities to improve their own lives. Founded by Steve Coast as a project at University College London (UCL) in July 2004, it aimed to create the first free map of the world (Ramm, Jochen and Chilton, 2011). It is ‘free’ in ac-cordance with the principles of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement which ensures that it is free of any restrictions that may hamper productive use of the data. Issued under a Creative Commons share-alike license, all of the data can be used without prior permission. OSM, as Haklay and Weber (2008: 13) explain, “follows the peer produc-tion model that created Wikipedia; its aim is to cre-ate a set of map data that’s free to use, editable, and licensed under new copyright schemes.”

As of May 2008, OSM had more than 33,000 registered users (of which approximately 9,500 are currently active contributors) and data contribution growth is rising rapidly (ibid, 2008). These users are, most commonly, hobbyists who “walk, hike, bike, or drive, recording their tracks using GPS devices” (Ramm, Jochen and Chilton, 2011: 3). These tracks are then uploaded to a computer, where information is added before being rendered onto OSM. Critics of OSM point to a lack of accuracy and a failure to im-plement quality control measures but it is generally perceived as a great success, offering, in urban areas, a “level of detail unmatched by the web offerings of Google, Yahoo or Microsoft” (ibid, 2011: 3). Some believe that OSM can be more up to date than its ri-vals. But, most importantly, OSM was designed with simplicity in mind so that anyone can contribute without prior experience of GIS. OSM, then, is about giving the power of mapping back to the people by building up an online, global community. Without those people, the map would soon decay. n

RAMM, JOCHEN and CHILTON (2011: blurb) “OpenStreetMap is a map of the whole world that can be used and expanded by everyone. Through an open community process, thousands of contributors all over the world survey what is around them and store it in a central database.”

10

e conducted two surveys, a series of interviews and kept research diaries to re-flect upon the project. Each methodology was intended to add detail, building on other methodologies and

adding layers of complexities. Here, we present a detailed overview of each methodology, noting any associated limitations. We then reflect upon the po-sitionality of the research team and outline the pro-ject’s ethical considerations.

ICT use surveyOur first survey was developed to establish a base level of understanding of Information and Commu-nication Technologies (ICTs) used in Ugunja and of their importance to the user. It was hoped that the findings would identify appropriate technologies for the collection and dissemination of the UCRC’s community mapping data. The survey also acted as a preliminary study through direct engagement with the needs of the wider community.100 participants were surveyed over two days us-ing stratified sampling methods to select partici-pants from a range of social groups. Discussions with UCRC staff helped to identify target groups according to occupation, including: shopkeep-ers, health workers, farmers, home-keepers and NGO staff. Within these groups we sought to fairly represent gender and age. Local UCRC staff administered the survey in collaboration with the research team. Four ques-tions were developed alongside a series of cues and prompts with care being taken not to influence out-comes of the questionnaire. Personal details were also collected to monitor the demographics of the participants.

...w

Six weeks were spent mapping, surveying and interview. These research methods combined to give insight that hopes to move the mapping project forward.

11

IMAGE: UCRC volunteer, Nashon, surveys a farmer using the local dialect

Chapter 2: Methodology

12

Local issues SurveyOur first survey was followed up by an in-depth sur-vey which sought to develop a more detailed under-standing of the local issues affecting the community of Ugunja. Building on our preliminary research, this survey was designed to highlight how the map could be applied and where the greatest needs lie. In devising the survey it was hoped that advocacy projects would be strengthened through a better un-derstanding of how local issues affect respective sec-tions of the community. It was thus constructed in order to break down larger issues into specific sub-categories that can be practically acted upon by the mapping team. 37 participants were surveyed at four separate community meetings held over the course of one week. A stratified sampling method was used to identify participants from a small range of social groups. Farmers, women and youth groups were tar-geted because they fit best with established UCRC activities. Time restraints demanded a focus on a small number of groups rather than attempting to be representative of the community.

Local UCRC staff led the administration of the survey with support from the research team. Partici-pants were asked to identify three local issues from a predetermined list of eight, according to those that needed to be addressed most urgently. Participants were then required to answer questions according to their three selected topics only. Surveys typically took 15-30 minutes to administer depending on needs for translation. They comprised of a series of open and closed questions to help understand the current situ-ation, any related problems and how such problems may be addressed. Personal details were again col-lected to monitor the demographics of the partici-pants and to enable further analysis of results.

InterviewsInterviews were conducted with practitioners, de-cision makers and academics. Carried out towards the end of the research, these sought to drill down into issues raised throughout our involvement in the UCRC mapping project. It was hoped that practi-tioners would be able to offer valuable insight into the process of mapping, giving us an understanding of lessons learnt both in Ugunja and elsewhere; that

decision makers would be able to comment on the possibilities of integrating community mapping into policy and planning procedures; and that academics would be able to discuss the mapping project within a broader contextual framework.

When put on the spot, respondents tended to be very positive about the future of the project and made commitments that can only be confirmed over time. In some circumstances, the research team questioned the validity of some statements since they seemed at odds with what had been experienced or understood outside of the interview.

Research diariesThroughout the project we sought to contribute prac-tically and positively to the mapping in a way that would compromise neither the integrity nor the sus-tainability of the project. Daily research diaries were kept and weekly reviews gave time to reflect upon progress and any issues encountered. These log the development of the project and of our relationship with it over time. An analysis of the diaries gives an empirical grounding to our thoughts and reflections. Most notably, these diaries record the progress made in the mapping process following our suggested shift towards using OSM.

The role of the research team has been important throughout the project and research diaries hope to provide reflexivity although it should be noted that these are inherently skewed according to the po-sitionality of each individual. In other words, the diaries provide a record of our situated feelings at a given time and place. This was of great importance since we began conducting formal research through surveys, but soon took on roles in training the local staff and facilitating the mapping process.

Positionality and ethics What maps include or exclude can have significant impacts for the communities they are intended to serve. Through a recognition of this power, there have been efforts to ensure that community map-ping projects are conducted fairly. Robert Chambers (2006), for example, dedicated a paper to asking: “Whose Map? Who is empowered and who disem-powered? Who gains and who loses?” He stresses the importance of asking and evaluating such questions in the process of mapping and urges us to develop an awareness of the roles played by all actors involved. “[The] nature of outcomes and power relations... depends much upon the behaviour and attitudes of the facilitators who control the process,” he explains (Chambers, 2006: 1).

In undertaking this research project, we found it useful to reflect upon the ‘participation ladder’ which outlines the roles and responsibilities of researchers and the communities that they work with (Cham-

ICT USE SURVEY: KEY QUESTIONS

1. Which technologies do you use on a weekly basis? Do you have individual/group access?2. If you do not use some technologies weekly, why not? Is there something stopping you? 3. Which three are most important to your everyday life?

13

bers, 2006 – Pretty, 1994). It was our intention to ne-gotiate the mapping project through a ‘transforma-tive’ relationship. This meant that we - the research team - would have acted as “catalyst and facilitator,” with the aim of “facilitating sustainable development by local people.” In this desired relationship, the local mapping participants would have been positioned as “Analyst/Actor/Agent.” Ideally, this would make our actions much more supportive than commanding and the role of the UCRC staff would have initiated action rather than merely complying. As such, we al-ways sought to place ownership of the project with the local mappers.

However, the early stage of the project meant that more facilitation and leadership was required on our part. Furthermore, UCRC has, in recent years, re-ceived over 200 western volunteers who have taken very active roles in driving projects forward - includ-ing considerable financial contributions. We were initially viewed in such light, which influenced local expectations and forced our roles and responsibilities ‘up’ the partnership ladder, away from our desired position. For the good of the mapping project’s fu-ture sustainability, we sought to resist these pressures and took great care to negotiate our partnership with UCRC staff. It was important for the UCRC team to take a lead role in decision making, and for us to take care not to unduly shape the formation of the map.

There were also a number of ethical considera-tions to be addressed during the course of this re-

search project. Firstly, time was required for par-ticipants to fill out questionnaires and partake in interviews. We took care to fit this research around participants’ commitments and we always kept du-ration of involvement to minimum. Care was also taken in managing expectations, enabling an honest working relationship with those we encountered.

It can be easy to raise expectations when ques-tioning participants, especially given the powerful positionality of the researcher. This becomes more problematic in a participatory mapping context when telling participants that a map may be used to facilitate change. It was of the upmost importance that these expectations were carefully managed. We made it clear that, whilst there had been inter-est in the map from various sectors of the commu-nity, there presently had been no direct action as a response to it.

The construction of a map is not a neutral pro-cess. As such, different sectors of the community may be more, or less represented. Those with the capability to map, as seen throughout the history of cartography, have the power to construct their pre-ferred image of an area. Most commonly this tension may arise around the issue of land rights and bound-aries. As such, we shared an element of concern in learning that the UCRC was itself involved in a legal dispute regarding the ownership of a plot of farm-land and chose not to involve ourselves in mapping land ownership. n

The ladder of participation (see Chambers, 2006) helped us reflect on our role in the mapping project

14

enyi, Farka, Vicsek, 2005).This reductionist view of community was most

troubling when the UCRC expressed a view that the local community did not have the capacity to know exactly how they wanted the mapping project to pro-gress. This line of thought leads to the belief that it may simply be quicker and easier for the UCRC to make decisions on behalf of the ‘community’. This could be justified by the fact that the staff members at the UCRC are from the community themselves. The concept of ‘community’ thus proves limited

apping is a tool through which processes of emanci-pation and development may be achieved. In this report, we therefore break with the literature’s preferred term – ‘community mapping’ – to

address the more appropriate concept of ‘mapping for development’. Not least because the former as-sumes that a map speaks for the community in its entirety, but also because it would be limiting to fo-cus just on the ‘community of Ugunja’, as though it existed only as a bounded entity at a local scale. By privileging the community over any other scale, we might fall into the ‘local trap’, too readily assuming a scalar politics to favour the local over any other ‘higher’ order of scale (Brown and Purcell, 2004). To overcome such difficulties, these collective notions of community should be worked through so as to refocus on people, things and the personal connec-tions that actively produce scale.

In asking how the UCRC project is composed and how it might be better composed, we must un-pack the concept of ‘community’. This cloudy - some-times generalising - term must be made concrete. There are a number of groups and individuals cur-rently involved in the Ugunja mapping project, each with their own interests, motives and opinions. The UCRC refers to some of these actors as ‘stakehold-ers’ - calling stakeholder meetings to discuss the fu-ture of the project. Key stakeholders for the UCRC include women, farmers, youth - not least because these are the groups that are most engaged in the UCRC’s broader activities. However, this grouping of actors into a singular ‘community’ - whilst for-givable in terms of the need to describe definable groups - does not acknowledge the complex network of mapping practice and consumption (Palla, Der-

m

Mapping for development projects require a large amount of effort from those involved. We suggest that quests for inclusivity undermine the act of mapping.

Chapter 3: Discussion

15

in assessing the development contributions of the Ugunja mapping project. By focussing on the all-encompassing concept of ‘community’, it would be concluded that the map is not a community-wide ef-fort and that it is not being called for by all sections of the community. However, that is not to say that it is not important to map an area. The process can be empowering for those involved - whoever they may be - and could be used in the future, in unanticipated ways.

In moving discussion away from the identities of those involved in the mapping process, a greater po-tential for the Ugunja map could be realised. The con-sultation of all relevant stakeholders may strengthen grant applications, but in reality it is the physical act of mapping that really matters. This can neither be defined by ‘community’ nor can it be limited to such a term. The mapping process involves very particu-lar individuals and institutions within Ugunja, but it also involves those reaching far beyond the confines of the town. Furthermore, the UCRC has extended the Ugunja mapping project far beyond the limits of the town itself. If nothing else, the term ‘community’ limits the potential of a mapping project to make connections further afield and to achieve things that would be stifled by such a local focus.

Ugunja acts as an important reminder as to the reality of communities - both online and offline, local and international. Commonly defined as “a group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations or settings” (MacQueen et al, 2001), the term needs to be ma-terialised into its individual elements so as to allow complexities and subtleties to emerge. The ArcGIS project initiated in 1998 aimed to: “build commu-nity capacity and facilitate more informed decision making across the community through access to, and management of, information” (Concept Paper,

2004). This makes sense on paper, but how does it translate into action? Re-alising true “community” involvement is the hard-est part, something we admittedly were far from achieving in the very

“The mapping process involves particular individuals and institutions within Ugunja, but it also involves those reaching far beyond the confines of the town.”

Chapter 3: Discussion

16

IMAGE: Students at Uganda Christian Uni-versity explain the use of ‘walking papers’

limited time we spent with UCRC. During the five weeks that we spent mapping, our aim was simply to use OSM to begin mapping Ugunja town to a two kilometre radius.

It should be noted that the two kilometre radius was set as an initial target to get the mapping process started. It was felt that the mapping efforts needed to be concentrated into a small geographic area to allow the map to build up to a high level of detail. This, it was hoped, would allow the entire process of map-ping an area to unfold in just five weeks. However, it soon became clear that the mapping process unfolds in a much more natural way than this. Once a certain path had been traced or an area had been mapped, it was hard to stop following this trajectory. We thus find long strands in which the maps strays beyond the 2 kilometre radius, as well as notable blank spots within the same radius. The emergent map is there-fore a result of embodied practices and personal in-terests. Importantly, there is no predetermined scale in which the mapping project unfolds. Instead, the mapping project – and the people and things that compose it – form very personal and specific rela-tions to raise the level of the project. This is mapping in action (Latour, 1987).

Appropriate technology Technology is no panacea in itself. Used alone, it does not necessarily have a development impact (Unwin, 2009). Care must, therefore, be taken in the implementation of technology for development purposes if it is to deliver the aspirations of poor and marginalised communities. Sustainability is also key. There is little point introducing technolo-gies to a community if they are not integrated in a way that delivers on that community’s demand. It is important to understand the importance of existing situations and demands of a community. For exam-ple, mobile phones and radios were the most widely used pieces of technology within the community of Ugunja due to their affordability. Meanwhile, com-puters were used much less widely, with less than 30% of our survey respondents using computers on

a weekly basis. This was attributed to high costs and a lack of widespread training.

However, Ugunja did have two Internet cafes and a relatively high level of computing skill was exhib-ited by some members of the community. This was a legacy largely attributed to the UCRC’s Microsoft Unlimited Potential program, which trained hun-dreds of people in using computers and Microsoft software. Having received funding in 2009 for this three-year project, the UCRC was was equipped with 20 desktop computers, eight laptops and satellite In-ternet was fitted. However, when this project came to an end in 2011, this infrastructure became dis-used and the satellite Internet was too expensive to maintain. The project failed to leave a legacy in terms of hardware and infrastructure but it did provide a platform from which the OSM project, by enrolling the resultant computing skills, could be launched. Indeed, Enock, the most active of the three initial lo-cal mappers that we worked with, had himself been a part of the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program and had a high level of computer literacy.

In implementing the Ugunja OSM project, it is important to be aware of this broader ICT land-scape. Indeed, this provides a starting point from which to assess the socio-technical network of map-ping in Ugunja. The availability of computers and the provision of Internet in Ugunja means that on-line mapping can take place. However this is done with notable cost and cannot be done by everyone in the community due to limited personal finances and skills. In future, mapping activities could be subsi-dised for those that cannot afford it. Training should also be provided for those not current equipped with digital mapping skills. Furthermore, we must not as-sume that everyone can access the map in its native online form. Efforts must therefore be made to dis-seminate the map in alternative ways to fit with the ICT landscape of Ugunja.

Having enrolled the necessary skills into the OSM project, we must now turn to the current infrastruc-ture on which it relied. The UCRC had a number of desktop computers and laptops that had been donat-

Percentage of the adults in Ugunja that use ICTs on a weekly basis

88%

87%

76%

51%

35%

23%

Mobile

Radio

Paper

TV

Internet

Computer

100 participants were surveyed over two days

in August 2011

17

ed by visiting volunteers. Two new laptops had also been purchased by the UCRC itself. Internet access was available via pay-as-you-go mobile modems. However, the UCRC only owned two of these and didn’t have the funds for continual connectivity. Fur-thermore, because this service was purchased in data bundles, there were considerable cost implications in using data intensive websites - such as editing OSM using the default and user-friendly “potlatch 2” in-terface. This intensive use of data could have been overcome by using the offline JOSM editor, however this required more skill and a stable server to store the data offline - both of which were deemed to be beyond the current capacity of the UCRC.

In composing the mapping project, the great-est challenge lay in storing data, given the UCRC’s current financial and technological capacities. The original UCRC mapping project from 1998 had used computers that no longer worked. What’s more, the unstable and unpredictable nature of the electricity supply in Western Kenya meant that computers of-ten shut down without warning. The UCRC lacked any infrastructure to reliably back-up and protect its data. Indeed, much of the initial data had been lost when the computers had “crashed” during the original project-phase. Some basic data sets were still accessible via an external hard drive. However, the

knowledge of how to use and manipulate this data had been lost. Those within the UCRC often cited the need for a fully-funded mapping project in order to overcome such problems. However, we remained committed to finding a solution that could be worked with immediately and would also be sustainable long beyond the termination of any funded project.

The loss of previous data shaped our approach to recomposing the UCRC mapping project in a more appropriate way. OSM provided the means to store data online, free of charge. But it also provided an online platform in which data could be shared and collaborated on with people beyond the UCRC. Adopting OSM meant that the project was now part of a global network. As Reiner Battenburg (2011: personal interview) of MapUganda explains: “Open-StreetMap is appropriate [for development purpos-es] because it encourages sharing. Mapping a whole country has to be economically viable... it has to be shared.” In order for Kenyan citizens to make full and effective use of a mapping project, large amounts of data need to be produced and the act of mapping needs to be shared.

Mapping in actionThe Ugunja mapping project of 1998 relied on Arc-GIS for an offline mapping process in which the

Mobile telephony ranked as the MOST IMPORTANT ICT. Mainly used for call-ing and SMS, as well as a range of sec-ondary functions including mobile banking, radio and the Internet.

Radio ranked as the SECOND MOSTIMPORTANT ICT. Residents listen to news, music, prayers and bible read-ings. Luo, Swahili and English languag-es are listened to.

Newspapers r anked as the THIRD MOST IMPORTANT ICT. People prided being up to date with news and dai-ly national newspapers were often shared among colleagues.

Importance of ICTs in rural Kenya

UR ICT4D

Regular ICT use88%

87%

76%

51%

35%23%

Mobile

Radio

Paper

TV

InternetComputer

Percentage of adult community

of Ugunja that use ICTs on a weekly basis

Conclusions Mobile telephony, radio and print have been identified as appropriate technologies for the community of Ugunja

to collect and disseminate information. Any assumptions that computers and the Internet may be ap-propriate to engage with the community at large prove to be false. And, although print media such as posters and flyers currently rank of low importance within the current ICT-landscape of Ugunja, it is felt that they have a huge potential if co-ordinated effectively alongside the power of face-to-face interaction. The landscape of ICT use is neither static nore fixed and, as such, our survey only provides a snapshot in time. We believe that the Ugunja Community Resource Centre may be able to actively work with other stakeholders to help shape the current situation so that knowledge can be better shared and communicated in future.

Mobile Radio Paper

Percentage of adult community of Ugunja that rank mobile phones , radio and newspapers as the most important, second most important and third most important ICTs to their everyday lives

66

15

4

14

44

8

3

12

28

“The radio belongs to my husband, it is much cheaper and we do not have mon-ey for other technologies. I listen to the 5 am morning devotion each day. I like the gospel music!” – Ivy, 43, Farmer

“I use my mobile phone mainly for social reasons but also for the internet. I use it as a reference tool when I am at work.” – Sharon, 23, Pharmacist

“Everyday I share the newspaper with my colleagues. I like to know all of the latest politics and football news ” – Richard, 35, Motorcycle taxi rider

Percentage of adults in Ugunja that rank mobile phones , radio and newspapers as the most important, second most important and third most important ICTs to their everyday lives

18

UCRC was the centre of all activities. Only a few ac-tors were involved in the creation of the map. They would leave the central hub to go out into the field to collect data. OSM allows a far more decentralised structure of mapping in which the key actors of the local community can map for their own purposes. The UCRC is therefore repositioned as an actor with-in this network. Its role is now as a facilitator and networking organisation that is attempting to coor-dinate the mapping effort. This also involves a con-siderable amount of ‘kick-starting’ in order to pro-gress the map of Ugunja to a stage in which people are able to contribute themselves.

Because the UCRC has access to GPS devices, it was a key actor - perhaps the only one in the locale of Ugunja - with capability to trace tracks and up-load them to the online server. This was a key pro-cess in creating a framework of reference from which people could then identify the relative location of places using their local knowledge of the area. For example, someone could identify the approximate location of their house by simply looking at a map of roads and paths in an area. The main roads in the area had been mapped by outsiders using satellite imagery, provided to OSM by Bing and Yahoo. How-ever, at the time this was of limited resolution and so the UCRC had to enrol itself into this network if it was to build a more detailed picture of the local area. Without the UCRC’s work, local people with GPS devices would not be able to contribute to the map. There is now higher resolution satellite imagery available for Ugunja. This allows smaller paths to be mapped, however outsiders have not yet done so be-cause there is a limited amount of labour in the OSM community.

The old mapping project relied solely on the UCRC to move it forward. However, the current OSM project allows anybody to pick up from where the UCRC has left off. The map of Ugunja can there-fore now be understood as fluid and ontogenetic in nature. It is always in the process of becoming just as the space it represents is. Indeed, Kitchin, Gleeson and Dodge (2012) argue that mapping needs to be viewed not as a representational lens to the world but a processual inscription of the world. Maps should be conceived as ‘of the moment’. They are brought into being through practices (embodied, technical, social and political) and are always in a state of flux - the process of mapping never stops. The production of maps unfolds in context, shaped by the experience, education as well as social, economic and political landscape in which the individual or group creating the map exist. (Kitchin & Dodge, 2007).

The Ugunja mapping project can be moved for-ward by the few local residents that have GPS-ena-bled mobile devices. But the map can also be added to by anyone - anywhere in the world - with an inter-

net connection. Indeed, the recent availability of high resolution satellite imagery in OSM has further ena-bled this global collaboration. Due to their activity on OSM, UCRC was recently contacted by someone else that was contributing to the map of Kenya. This person was located outside of Ugunja and was there-fore solely using satellite imagery to add to the map. This raises interesting questions about how the act of mapping differs between ‘on the ground’ mappers and ‘at a distance’ mappers. It may be thought that ‘outsiders’ mapping an area would erode local mean-ing. Indeed, it might initially occur to treat this as an embodied/disembodied dichotomy to be worked through dialectically. However, the act of collabora-tive map making is much more nuanced than that, as a recent conversation between the UCRC and an online map-maker illustrates.

The ‘outsider’ suggests making GPS traces by traveling along the tracks in the Ugunja, before up-loading them to OSM. These traces - of certain roads and paths - should then be compared with the sat-ellite imagery on the OSM online editing software (Potlatch 2). The aim of this comparison is to test the accuracy of the satellite data, which is sometimes dis-placed and is not neccessarily as accurate as the GPS devices, this map-maker suggests. The ‘hand-made’ and ‘ready-made’ geographic data is therefore as im-portant as one another. But, perhaps most interest-ingly, the ‘outside’ map-maker used the GPS traces uploaded by the UCRC to make this comparison himself. In this process, the UCRC no longer has a priveledged position in the practice of map-making. Their traces have been used by other people in an increasingly decentralised practice of mapping. The ‘outsider’ then got in contact with the UCRC to dis-cuss the difference between the satellite imagery and their own GPS data. Thus, an online network of col-laborative map-making is being built. In this network any distinction between on- and offline, or embod-ied and disembodied, no longer hold any relevance. The practices become entangled into a complex web in which the map is always emergent.

The open nature of OSM means that the software itself - a key tool in the act of mapping - undergoes continual change. New categories and symbols are created to suit the social, economic and political landscape for which the map is being created. Reiner Battenburg (2011: personal interview) of MapUgan-da explains: “The map is never finished. No! Never! That is the really interesting thing about OSM. They come up with extra features.” For example, he high-lights the icons for mapping water sources as being particularly unsuitable for the East African con-text. “If you look at the well, the icon on the Wiki is like one of these fairytale things! The reality here is slightly different and there are far more ways of get-ting water... There are some specialised features (e.g.

19

MAP OF UGUNJA (OpenStreetMap, September 2012): The first wave of mapping on OpenStreetMap was initiated by the research team in August 2011. This suc-ceeded in mapping an area of approximately 2km surrounding the town centre. The second wave of mapping took place in summer 2012 and managed to map to a 4km radius. However, the space beyond this radius remains largely blank. This raises questions as to how mapping efforts can be ‘scaled-up’.

20

refugee camps after Haiti) but we really need to take ownership of the map here.” This fluid reimagining of the cartographic landscape allows knowledge to be shaped to suit its local context, however the Ken-yan mapping community must grow if it is utilise OSM to its full potential. At present, the relatively small pool of mappers is limiting the speed at which the map of Ugunja progresses.

Scaling-upThe Ugunja mapping project faces a great and largely unknown challenge of ‘scaling up’. The town cen-tre, an area along the main highway and a piece of land by St Paul’s health centre has been mapped in intense detail. But, whilst the mapped area is not clearly bounded, it is clear that the surrounding area remains largely blank. Questions therefore remain as to how to spread the map beyond the limited areas of detail. We might ask: how can the Ugenya district be mapped? How can the project spread to the rest of Western Kenya? And how can Kenyans coordinate an effort to map their country in its entirety? This is a challenge shared by other projects in East Africa with both MapKibera and MapUganda attempting to spread the project beyond their initial geographic focus.

Following Schumacher’s well-cited notion that “small is beautiful”, Banks (2008) stresses that lo-cal context is essential when considering the use of digital technologies for development purposes – there is therefore no universal model to be rolled out at a larger scale. Scaling-up thus involves ignit-ing many small projects rather than attempting to ‘jump’ (Smith, 1992) from the local, to the regional,

to the national. From our research, it is clear that that OSM projects do not follow a linear model of growth. Activity is uneven, sporadic and is labour intensive. Mapping communities typically arise “out of the blue,” according to Reinier Battenberg of Ma-pUganda (Personal Interview, September, 2011). We therefore argue that scale should be thought of not in terms of size but in terms connectedness. Scaling-up will take effort and resources to make connections and spark collaborative projects.

UCRC is well placed to make such connections since it is part of KenTel, a network of 42 telecent-ers, each aiming to give communities access to infor-mation. A telecentre is broadly defined as a shared computing facility but can also provide access to training, information and resources. Cleopa Otieno, KenTel National Coordinator, visits Ugunja every two weeks and is interested in sharing UCRC’s expe-rience of OSM. “Quite often you walk into a telecen-tre and cannot find local information,” he explains. “By mapping local resources you can find out a lot of information, much more easily. This is a potential we want to share.” UCRC mappers Enock and Nashon have since facilitated a session on OSM at a national training conference and Cleopa reports that the Ken-ya ICT Board has shown interest in using OSM to create local content about Kenya.

For the Ugunja mapping project to scale-up, it needs to resolve questions relating to resources and responsibilites. UCRC feels that it cannot properly progress without funding for the project and it is therefore trying to make connections to gather the funds needed to employ a specialist mapper, pay for Internet and transport, host stakeholder meet-

IMAGES: A mapping day event for Ugandan students, who learn how to map their university campus

21

ings and maintain equip-ment. As such, there had been limited activity on OSM in the Ugunja area between September 2011 and mid-2012. But having undetaken an intense sec-ond wave of mapping in mid-2012, the UCRC staff proved themselves capa-ble of concerted, if sporadic, mapping efforts. How-ever, throughout interviews it was stressed that the UCRC wanted to hand over ownership of the project to the community and to government ministries. With ownership of and commitment to the project in limbo, it is unsure whether the project will be able to sustain itself, let alone scale-up.

Should the UCRC secure funding, it hopes to send a member of staff around KenTel’s national network of telecentres, to train them on the use of OSM. They will target telecentres that already have computers, willing staff and the resources to support the UCRC member of staff. “Looking at the rest of Kenya, this is something that I am sure will happen,” says Charles Ogada, head of Programs at UCRC. This national spread of skills is a model being trialled by MapUganda, who are working to map the whole nation by visiting all Ugandan universities. Through intensive one-day mapping session, Reinier Bat-tenburgh and his staff are training Geography and Computer Science students in mapping using OSM. It is hoped that once they graduate, they will return to their hometown and spread their skills with com-munities across the county.

Reinier explains the difficulty of making connec-tions on such a large scale:

Such words are echoed by Mikel Maron of Map-Kibera and the OSM Foundation board. He has concerns about sustaining mapping activities into the future. His solution has been to form the Map-Kibera Trust. By creating an organisation it is hoped that development can be built up and that funding can continue to be secured. The challenge is to not only bring OSM to communities, but to support and encourage growth into the foreseeable future. This, Mikel acknowledges, is “maybe going to take some new strategies” (Personal interview, October 2011).

A social movement’s true empowerment derives from its ability to network, making broader links and moving beyond the local (Towers, 2000). This involves not just solidarity and support between pro-jects, but collaboration between actors. By working together across lines of difference, small-scale map-ping projects may be able to bring in more actors, make stronger connections and achieve more at a greater scale. This, however, involves sharing re-sources and committing to a broader social objective. MapUganda is a powerful example of the commit-ted effort that one project can give to the geographic spread of skills. More models of scaling-up need to be explored, but it is clear that hard work and an ele-ment of selflessness will be required. n

REINIER BATTENBERG (Personal interview, September 2011): “We want to try a different strategy because no one knows what the strategy is… It is a question of skill and how to spread that skill. At the moment it still requires someone to fly in. Someone from outside can only cover a few square miles. But a map should govern a whole country.”

22

Chapter 4: Conclusion

23UCRC mapper, Nashon, holds a GPS unit and points out the route he plans to trace through the market

Mapping parties can help grow the mapping community. We call for future research to investigate collaborative map-making, involving those mapping both ‘on the ground’ and ‘from afar’.

e set out on this research pro-ject guided by the theoreti-cal contributions of critical cartographers – those who make claims about the power relations that reside in even the most banal of maps. This

approach treats maps as visual images, and often as historical artefacts, which serve only the privileged few who created them. The widespread conviction of such arguments caused us to become complacent and we had no real reason to question this approach. However, once we arrived in Ugunja and began our research, such theories served us poorly. Quite sim-ply, the theory didn’t make sense in the grounded reality of mapping.

As we reoriented our theoretical stance, we be-came interested more in the act of mapping than in the map itself. Taking on board Latour’s (2010) ‘com-positionist’ approach led to a focus on the practice of mapping ‘in action’. This meant analysing the com-position of the mapping project and attempting to build it up. In sum, we asked how the Ugunja map-ping project is composed and how it might be better composed in the future.

The Ugunja mapping project, as we found it, had come to lay dormant due its unsuitable composition. Outdated and complex proprietary software, unsta-ble sources of power, insufficient data storage and a lack of trained personnel all contributed to a weak mapping infrastructure. It is worth noting that this mapping infrastructure had been sufficient for the mapping project to make headway a few years previ-ously. We must therefore recognise that the needs of the project are constantly changing, not least due to advancing technology and mobility of people.

In order to set the Ugunja mapping project in motion once more, we had to compose the project afresh. This involved using the UCRC’s laptops and existing GPS units. However, we initiated a change

in mapping software – from ArcGIS to OSM. OSM is not a GIS package but a store for street map data. Since we felt that there simply wasn’t enough data to manipulate on a GIS package it was suggested that data should first of all be collected, OSM provided an appropriate means to do this. The cloud-based stor-age of data on OSM meant that the UCRC no longer had to worry about storage issues, which were par-ticularly challenging due to unstable power supply. OSM was also free and relatively easy to use, which meant that many people in the community might one day be able to map for themselves. Technological advancements meant that community mapping was now highly feasible on even the smallest of budgets.

The online and open-source nature of OSM add-ed a new dimension to the Ugunja mapping project. Since the data is shared among the OSM commu-nity, the act of mapping becomes collaborative. The Ugunja mapping project is now one small part of an effort to create a single (open-source) map of the world. Within a few months of the switch to OSM, the UCRC staff were contacted by a mapper who lived outside of the Ugunja community. Using satel-lite imagery to map from afar, he was adding to the work of the UCRC. The amount of ground that he was able to cover was vast, however he needed the UCRC staff to advise on a specific detail that only someone on the ground would have knowledge of. Through such interactions the map grows, open col-laboration bringing advantages of increased work-force, speed and scope, whilst striving to maintain local detail.

Local knowledge shaped the act of mapping. In our role of facilitating the mapping process, the UCRC began by asking us where they should begin and finish mapping. Similarly, they asked for us to suggest what was important to map. However, they often knew where they wanted to map or where to stop mapping and so we turned these questions back to them. They then answered their own questions

w

24

with ease. The decision-making processes of map-making (those which critical cartographers made so much of) were simply intuitive. Within a few days of walking and driving the UCRC staff had a dense network of roads and paths. They would collect one section each day and then upload it straight onto the Internet, plotting on key features using their eye sight. Their attention to detail became obsessive at times, adding features such as the outdoor pool table and the new police station (under construction). In this way they made the maps theirs.

The act of digital map-making is a messy process. Pieces were added here and there on an ad hoc basis. The mappers mapped what they felt like, when they felt like it. But very quickly they began to construct the map that they wanted. The grid of roads provided a useful reference point but never once did we at-tempt to create the ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’ grid before progressing further. The first wave of mapping that we initiated in August 2011 was intended to cover a 2km radius, because this was the distance that we could cover by foot and would expect to map in suffi-cient density. We roughly covered that area, but map-ping would shoot off in one direction along a branch of roads or towards one of the mapper’s house. This allowed for a much more natural progression of the map. It is anticipated that these offshoots will con-tinue to eat up the areas of blank space until meeting other mapping efforts, and forming a whole.

Online mappers around the world can assist the developing world – that which is typically under-mapped – by using the satellite data on OSM to cre-ate a grid of reference. By mapping major roads, riv-ers and features, local mapping projects like that in Ugunja may be able to link up to one another. If this happened, then we may see highly detailed maps of East Africa, and other such under-mapped regions, begin to emerge. It is not enough for insular projects to focus on mapping local areas intensively. Mapping

must occur at all levels of detail and mapping efforts must begin to link up. As the online community map from afar and those on the ground map their com-munities, mapping efforts begin to cross over and the first free and open map of the world comes alive in even the most under-mapped areas of the world.

Whilst practitioners seek out contacts and contin-ue to expand their efforts geographically, academics can expand on research into the collaborative act of mapping both from afar and on the ground. For the laymen and women out there, all that is left to do is to get mapping. As technological advancements re-sult in cheaper and more accessible GPS equipment, and as Internet connectivity continues to spread, the viability of locally-driven mapping projects becomes more realistic. It’s time to get mapping and to begin making those connections.

It is therefore recommended that the Ugunja mapping project should push for further involve-ment of people in the mapping process. This could be achieved through hosting a mapping day in nearby towns, which are yet to mapped at anywhere near the detail that Ugunja has been able to achieve. These will give people the skills needed to map. By holding mapping sessions in towns with Internet cafes, issues of access to software and data storage are overcome at relatively little cost. This leaves access to GPS tracing devices as the remaining socio-technical hurdle. In some instances, people may have GPS-enable smart-phones. Otherwise, it may be necessary to loan GPS devices or to hold regular mapping parties in which GPS tracing can be intensively carried out. This method, we hope, may be able to spread the map (and community of active mappers) outwards from Ugun-ja. As the community in the region grows, so too may the attention that it receives from those mapping on-line (or ‘from afar’), which will only help strengthen the map of the region, covering the blankspot it once was. n

After the research: Team leader Olly Parsons returned to Ugunja in summer 2012 and, whilst there, presented a print out of the map to Charles Ogada, UCRC Program Manager (pictured). The UCRC recently secured a $3000 grant from the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa for an agricul-tural project. This will involve using the map to spatially represent commodity prices.

25

Academic references

Anderson, B. and Wylie, J. (2009) On geogra-phy and materiality, Environment and Planning A, 41, 318–35

Brown, J. C., and Purcell, M. (2004) There’s nothing inherent about scale: Political ecology, the local trap, and the politics of development in the Brazilian Amazon. Geoforum 36: 607–24.

Chambers, R. (2006) Participatory Mapping and Geographic Information Systems: Whose Map? Who is Empowered and Who Disempow-ered? Who Gains and Who Loses? EJISDC, 25: 2, 1 - 11.

Crampton, J. W. (2010) Mapping: A Critical In-troduction to Cartography and GIS. Wiley-Blackwell: Hong Kong.

Dodge, M. Kitchin, R. and Perkins C. (2009) Re-thinking Maps: New frontiers in cartographic theory, Routledge: London.

Elwood, S. (2006) Negotiating Knowledge Pro-duction: The Everyday Inclusions, Exclusions, and Contradictions of Participatory GIS Research. The Professional Geographer, 58(2):197–208

Edney, M. (1997) Mapping an Empire: The Geo-graphical Construction of British India, 1765-1843. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gartner, W. (2009) Deconstructing Brand Eq-uity, Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice, 1, 51 - 63.

Haklay, M. and Weber, P. (2008) OpenStreet-Map: User- Generated Street Maps. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 7(4).

Harley, J. B. (1988) ‘Maps, knowledge, and pow-er.’ in: Cosgrove, D. E. and Daniels, S. (eds) The ico-nography of landscape: essays on the symbolic rep-resentation, design, and use of past environments. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 277–312.

Kitchin, R. and Dodge, M. (2007) Rethinking maps. Progress in Human Geography, 31(3): 331-344.

Kitchin, R. Gleeson, J .and Dodge, M. (2012) Unfolding mapping practices: a new epistemology for cartography, Transactions of the Institute of Brit-ish Geographers (Available online).

Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Latour, B. (2010) An attempt at a ‘Composition-ist Manifesto’, New Literary History 41:3, 471–490.

Office of Science and Technology Policy (2000) Statement by the President Regarding the United States’ Decision to stop degrading Global Positioning System Accuracy, Accessed June 2011: http://clin-ton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/0053_2.html

Palla, G. Derény, I. Farkas, I. & Vicsek, T. (2005) Uncovering the overlapping community structure of complex networks in nature and society, Nature, 435, 814-818.

Parker, B. (2006) Constructing Community Through Maps? Power and Praxis in Community Mapping, The Professional Geographer, 58(4) , 470–484

Peluso, N. L. (1995) Whose woods are these? Counter-mapping forest territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode 27(4), 383-406.

Ramm, F. Jochen, T. & Chilton, S. (2011) Open-StreetMap. UIT Cambridge: Cambridge

Smith, N. (1992) Contours of a Spatialized Poli-tics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Ge-ographical Space, Social Text 33 1992, 54-8.

Towers, G. (2000) Applying the Political Geog-raphy of Scale: Grassroots Strategies and Environ-mental Justice’, The Professional Geographer, 52(1), 23–36.

Unwin, T. (2009) ICT4D: Information and Com-munication Technologies for Development, Cam-bridge University Press: Cambridge.

Whatmore, S. (2006) Materialist returns: prac-tising cultural geography in and for a more than human world, Cultural geographies, 13, 600–9.

Wood, D. (1992) The Power of Maps. London: Routledge.

26

ugunja.wordpress.com