Postdevelopment Policy Information: A GIS Design Workflow for the Pluriverse

Edoardo BARADELLO

Diplomová práce

Abstract:

The global encounter between critical and participatory GIS and postdevelopment is generating post-dualist and post-positivist approaches to GIS-based policy information. This study investigates the accessibility and agency of a FLOSS-based participatory GIS design workflow for a non-expert and low-resource user, within a paradigm of postdevelopment in practice. It articulates 14 GIS practices through 3 FLOSS technological resources (Ubuntu OS, LibreOffice and QGIS). The workflow is derived from a 10-week internship at the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) involving the participation in daily activities and the creation of a web map of AFSA's case studies on agroecology. The research reports the complexity, the unintended agency and the collaborative potential for problem resolution within a FLOSS and open data environment. Besides, the collective discussion and piloting of the web map creation highlights the proactive engagement of postdevelopment 'intuitions' within GIS practice, while adjusting to a contextual critique of the 'development' discourse. Hence, the results support the relevance of negotiation and of sharing experiences within and outside of a workflow creation to inform GIS practices through contextual evidence and relationality. Such a process of knowledge emergence is found consistent with a deconstruction of the divide between the researcher and the research community for the generation of pluriversal policy information.

Abstract:

The global encounter between critical and participatory GIS and postdevelopment is generating post-dualist and post-positivist approaches to GIS-based policy information. This study investigates the accessibility and agency of a FLOSS-based participatory GIS design workflow for a non-expert and low-resource user, within a paradigm of postdevelopment in practice. It articulates 14 GIS practices through 3 FLOSS technological resources (Ubuntu OS, LibreOffice and QGIS). The workflow is derived from a 10-week internship at the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) involving the participation in daily activities and the creation of a web map of AFSA's case studies on agroecology. The research reports the complexity, the unintended agency and the collaborative potential for problem resolution within a FLOSS and open data environment. Besides, the collective discussion and piloting of the web map creation highlights the proactive engagement of postdevelopment 'intuitions' within GIS practice, while adjusting to a contextual critique of the 'development' discourse. Hence, the results support the relevance of negotiation and of sharing experiences within and outside of a workflow creation to inform GIS practices through contextual evidence and relationality. Such a process of knowledge emergence is found consistent with a deconstruction of the divide between the researcher and the research community for the generation of pluriversal policy information.

Keywords

Postdevelopment, Pluriverse, GIS design, Participatory GIS, Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), Policy Information

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 31. 5. 2021

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedoucí: doc. Mgr. Jiří Pánek, Ph.D.

UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI

Přírodovědecká fakulta

Magisterský studijní program / obor:
Geography / International Development Studies