National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This Specialist Meeting (Santa Barbara, CA, 15-17 Oct. 1998) brought together individuals with deep experience with public participation GIS to share experiences about alternative GIS designs and applications to better reflect community interests and involve and empower its members. The meeting also explored the unintended consequences of PPGIS in marginalizing people and communities. The participants presented case studies in a diversity of social contexts. Key themes of the meeting included: identifying community information needs and how PPGIS might contribute to those needs; the multiple ways in which PPGIS are being designed and implemented; the impacts on communities arising from differential access to GIS hardware, software, data, and expertise; the nature of GIS knowledge distortion and the ways in which socially differentiated communities and their local knowledge might be represented within a PPGIS; changes in local politics and power relationships arising from the use of PPGIS in decision making; unintended outcomes of PPGIS implementation, including red-lining, local surveillance, and breaches of confidentiality and privacy; and the potential of PPGIS to empower people and communities. Extended abstracts of papers from 38 participants, discussion summaries, and meeting recommendations are provided in this report.