Participatory ethics for human geography

Convenors: Rachel Pain (Durham) and Farhana Sultana (Minnesota)

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This session aims to discuss current tensions and opportunities connected to research ethics, from the standpoint of participatory geographies. We invite papers on the subject of ethics from those who are engage in, or who are willing to engage with, participatory research.

     Growing numbers of geographers are developing and deploying more participatory ethics with research respondents/participants in different ways. What do these participatory ethics look like? How are ethics negotiated with respondents/participants? What power relations and hierarchies need to be considered in doing research? Do respondents have different ethical priorities to those we take for granted as ‘good practice’, and what issues does this raise for research? What are the ways in which participatory ethics can be operationalised in research practice? What are the geographies of participatory ethics? Are they sensitive to, and variable between, different research contexts? How does doing fieldwork/research in developing country contexts differ from developed country contexts?

     Discussions about ethical and moral practice are also taking place elsewhere in human geography. How do these debates relate to participatory ethics? At the same time, constraints on research are tightening as a result of the demands of ethical clearance from universities and the institutions that fund and control research. What experiences are there of balancing what can be very different ‘ethical’ demands? What are the prospects for a professional code of ethics for geography – would it be enabling or further constraining?  How might we address the challenges for research which arise from such codes/guidelines?

Participatory Geographical Information Systems

Joint with GIScRG 

(Convenors: Christine Dunn & Rachel Pain, University of Durham)

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Following critiques in the 1990s around the social implications and theoretical assumptions of Geographical Information Systems, recent years have witnessed a shift towards more ‘socially aware’ approaches to GIS applications. These newer framings of GIS draw on various forms of community participation and give privilege to local and indigenous geographical knowledge as well as to more formal spatial data. Alongside these developments there has been a recent surge of interest in participatory research approaches in Geography with contributions both to theory and practice.

    In bringing together researchers who are developing bottom-up approaches to GIS this session aims to consider some of the challenges faced in attempting to represent multiple geographical perspectives through a visual information technology.  The session also provides an opportunity to explore some of the different manifestations of what has been variously labelled as, inter alia, Participatory GIS, Public Participation GIS and Community-integrated GIS.

    Papers are invited from those working with participatory approaches to spatial issues, however loosely or tightly coupled to GIS technology. Papers are welcome on specific applications as well as on broader conceptual themes around participation and GIS.