Participatory Mapping
Co-Design / Design Anthropology
Definition
Participatory mapping is a subset of participatory design that involves community members drawing their lived experience onto maps to help researchers understand where opportunity spaces lie.
“At some sites, the community definitions of boundaries closely mirrored administrative boundaries, but in Tanzania and Soweto the community definitions of boundaries were different than what appeared on administrative maps.”
— Suzanne Maman, Using Participatory Mapping to Inform a Community-Randomized Trial of HIV Counseling and Testing Pg 381
Procedure
Preparation
Bring mapping supplies, such as large paper and markers
Make sure to contact community leaders that can give you access and help others understand your goals
Select participants that have lived in the community for a while and can give you a good idea of the general community activities.
Bring recording device
In person
Make sure that you create a comfortable space and address your participate in a kind manner to set them at ease.
Explain the goal of the mapping.
Start from the beginning of a typical day and work your way through prompting the participant to draw their path and mode of transportation and note every touch with a symbol.
Then ask about a non typical day, what other activities do they partake in.
Analysis
Take the maps and overlay them. Find the commonalities and differences.
Then go back to the recordings and try to understand why the differences occurred between participants.
Lastly try to identify opportunity spaces in the maps.
Use Case
While researching waste management for the city of Bloomington my team interviewed several people about their lived experience. We then compiled their maps and looked at the similarities in places visited as well as what places were unique to each participant and why.
Strengths
Mapping has been used for thousands of years for a good reason. It is a way for one person to communicate how they interact with the world with another person.
Participatory mapping is very helpful because it can be used in several different ways to evaluate almost any part of a community.
Weaknesses
One problem with asking people to map their lived experience is that sometimes when you tell someone to portray their lives they take liberties and are not fully truthful.
Some people are also nervous about their sketching abilities and do not want to draw.
