Positionaltiy = All about me

Western Maryland

Exchange Student: The Netherlands

Frostburg State University 

International Politics + Geography

Positionality/CV (2004-now)

• MapQuest Cartographer Intern
• (Almost did Peace Corps - beekeeping in the Gambia) Made maps for FEMA
• (Almost went to Utrecht but instead...)Masters of Science McGill University - Participatory Mapping in Barbados
• PhD Simon Fraser University - mHealth and VGI
• Assistant Professor UWT

Conceptual Framework

ideas that motivate my work

Geoweb

• interconnected tools and spatial data available on the web spanning multiple geographic regions (Lake and Farley, 2007)

• Revolutionized spatial data (Sui, 2008)

• but not democratizing it (Haklay, 2013)

• Provides access to satellite and aerial imagery! (Goodchild, 2007; Harvey, 2014; Kingsbury & Jones, 2009)

• Opportunity to contribute Volunteered Geographic Information (Goodchild, 2007)

Spatial Media

Elwood & Leszczynski (2012) New spatial media, new knowledge politics. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (38): 544-559.

"Mediums or channels that extend our ability to interact with and create geographic information online" p 544

Maps --> Media

Applied

Quantitative

Theory

Qualitative

Many Voices

Many forms

Knowledge Politics

Political Power

"...knowledge politics to be shaped by deeply institutionalized tendencies in planning and policy making to grant greater weight to knowledge expressed as quantitative data or represented in cartographic forms." 

Data Driven Decision Making

(Elwood & Leszczynski, 2012: 545)

GIS and spatial media

(Ricker, 2017)

Geoweb

Spatial Media

Maintain a keen awareness as to not reproduce inequalities. Active engagement in effort to use these technologies to combat inequalities (Elwood, 2015)

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Critical cartography

Defined

You can tell a lot about values based on the open data available

means to illuminate social and environmental injustices

co-construction of knowledge= Better understanding of HAZARDS?

does the process lead to the promotion of self and critical awareness? Policy change?  At what scale? Individual, collective, political social change?

Participatory Action Research

Public Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Negative connotation

Militarization

Surveillance

(Sandvik & Lohne, 2014)

Drones for good

• Archaeology 
• Forestry
• Emergency response
• Search and Rescue
• Natural resource management
• (Precision)Agriculture
• Construction
• Remote Sensing 
• (Colomina & Molina, 2014; Everaerts, 2008, Forance et al., 2014; Upton et al., 2015; Zhang & Kovacs, 2012; Rokhmana, 2015).

Organized #DronesforGood

• Digital Humanitarianism
• OpenAerialMap
• UAViators 
• DIYDrones
• OpenDroneMap
• DroneAdventures
• Conservation Drones
• Drone Code

Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University created this 3D model from aerial imagery captured by UAV.

Aerial Photography

The Appalachian Mountaintop Patrol (AMP)

Laura grace chipley 

Digital Maps! 
Digital Globes offer basemaps for participatory mapping. But they also control temporal and spatial resolution of those basemaps

 Putting a UAV in the hands of a community, could they monitor...

• Communities changes through the course of a day, season, year...
• Monitory Ecosystem services
• Acute changes - landslide event, urban encroachment
• Gradual changes - land use change, urban growth
•  Access to water resources, refugee camp movement
• Habitat loss...
• ?????

Less interested in flying...

More interested in outputs...

Social

Implications

Medium influences who will participate

(Chambers, 2006) 

Structure from Motion (SfM) software

Generate an Othophoto

2012

2015

Title Text

• Bullet One
• Bullet Two
• Bullet Three

77 photos to make an orthophoto, 3D model + more in

> one hour total

Share your data

MapTime

OSM for disaster PREPAREDNESS

Student Project: Pull from OSM

Streets:

•*Cobblestone streets

•*Roundabouts at intersections

•*One-way streets

•Narrow two-way streets (because of street parking, only one vehicle at a time can pass through in either direction.)

•Speed bumps on streets

Residences:

•*Single-family home; Duplex, Triplex, or Apartment Building

•Year built

•*Number of floors

• *how many apartments

•*Location of Gas Meter(s)

•*Location of Electric Meter(s)

•*Location of Stationary Propane Tank(s)

•*Location of Stationary Heating Fuel Tank (Heating Oil)

•Solar Panels of Roof? (Y or N)

•*Presence of a detached garage

Communities of Practice

Esri App Studio

Communities of interest

Conclusion & Future

Maps are political

Maps are a form of media 

(Social) Media are becoming Maps

What is learned in the process of participation?  

Tell me, I forget.

Show me, I remember.

Involve me, I understand. 

-Chinese Proverb (Paulos et al., 2009)

Data

Ambiently collected?

Actively collected?

More research questions!

What knowledge is transferred?!

Participation sparks critical thinking during each step of the process

DATA PREPAREDNESS AS DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

• Illuminate social and environmental injustice
• Relevant Temporal Resolution
• Enhanced Spatial Resolution
• Increased coverage
• Complement existing research methods
• Opportunity to establish good practice with community engagement 

Challenge

Illuminate methods in which to utilize these increasingly accessible technologies to edit your world, tell your truth,

share your experience in place. 

Data Day Dreams

Future Research:

Target funding from: 

European Research Council

Starting Grant

https://erc.europa.eu/funding/starting-grants

Open Data

Participatory Evaluation to measure effectiveness of open data: Municipal Scale

Test visualizations for decision making

Thank You.

Acknowledgments: Muki Haklay, Agnieszka Leszczynski,

Sarah Elwood

University of Washington Office of Global Affairs Strategic International Partnership Travel Award