COUNTER-MAPPING – INITIATIVES
There are a number of citizen groups, institutions and activists that we have collaborated with; to either provide mapping and data support for their work, or to help ideate interventions that created useful counter maps.
1.2.1- Reclaim Our Beaches garbage and infrastructure mapping:
In December 2010, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), a local youth initiative in the city, contacted Transparent Chennai to see if TC could, in any way, help strengthen a proposal that they were sending to the Chennai Corporation on the need for dustbins and toilets on Elliots and Valmiki beaches. A methodology was devised for ROB that would create spatially precise data on the amount of garbage present on the beach and the existing supporting infrastructure. The ROTARACT club of Madras has currently taken up the final proposal as part of their 2012 agenda and discussions with the Corporation of Chennai Zone 13 are set to commence soon. To view the maps created visit the map section in this stream or click here.
Related blogposts:
Spatial mapping of Chennai’s beaches by ROB and Transparent Chennai
Transparent Chennai teams up with ROB again!
ROB spends another day collecting trash on broken bridge
1.2.2- Olcott Memorial High School student mapping workshop:
It is contended that children’s perspectives are widely underrepresented in maps. In an effort to start a debate about this amongst the residents in Chennai, TC conducted a 4 session mapping workshop with the children of Olcott memorial High School in April 2011. The students participated in a series of activities designed to teach them about reading and making maps. With the assistance of members of the Transparent Chennai team and teachers from the Olcott Memorial School, students were exposed to Google Earth and Google Maps, used paper maps to navigate through their neighborhoods, and took photographs and created maps of their own surroundings. The children then presented geo-tagged photographs they took of their neighborhoods, with commentaries on why certain places are important to them, and how they are used by locals. Most importantly, the children also presented their own maps of their school and its grounds, where they had marked everything from classrooms to fruit trees to informal play areas. This initiative was supported by a Rising Voices microgrant. To view the maps that the children made visit the map section in this stream or click here.
Related blogposts:
Lending voice to the voiceless
How the students made their map
Press coverage for the Olcott school mapping workshop public meeting
1.2.3- Urur/Olcott Kuppam Panchayat community mapping:
This project, initiated by Transparent Chennai in March 2011 and with support from a Rising Voices Microgrant, aimed to document space and how it is used along the coast by two adjacent urban fishing kuppams (villages) within the city of Chennai. In partnership with the fishing panchayats that govern these villages, our team worked with the communities to create maps using a participatory approach, in which different groups of residents contributed to the map by marking the boundaries of their village, infrastructure and land use patterns. Researchers and individuals from the community also identified local resources, points of historical and ritual importance and gaps in local infrastructure. The maps once ready will be property of the panchayats who will use them in their efforts to strengthen claims on their land and right to traditional livelihood practices. To view the maps that the children made visit the map section in this stream or click here.
For more information on the rationale behind this initiative, click here.
Related Blogposts:
Participatory mapping for the fishing community
Community mapping in urur/olcott kuppam- step 1
Community mapping at urur/olcott kuppam- step 2 and 3
1.2.4- Centre For Environmental Education perception mapping:
In August 2011 Transparent Chennai was invited to participate in the Center for Environment Education’s (CEE) annual coastal carnival for kids, which was held at the Bharat Scouts and Guide’s campus on Marina beach. Our focus? To try and provide an interactive display that in the end would highlight the importance of the beach. Using printed out Google Earth images we asked the kids to do things- to tag and write about their favorite beach and beach area, and to mark how far they had traveled to attend the carnival. This resulted in a rich and varied perception map about the importance of the coastline. To view the maps that the were made visit the map section in this stream or click here.
Related Blogposts:
1.2.5- Thervoy Kandigai spatial data collection:
Thervoy Kandigai is a village whose landscape is rapidly changing due to a large portion of their common forest land being acquired by SIPCOT for industrial development. It is about two and a half hours away from Chennai by bus and is located in the Gummidipoondi Taluk of the Thiruvallur District. In July 2011 Madhumitta Dutta, an activist working with the community asked us to help her collect certain spatial information to counter claims made by SIPCOT over the distance of the a reserve forest from the site boundary. To view the spatial data that was collected visit the map section in this stream or click here.
For more information about Thervoy kandigai read Madhumitta’s blogpost, which was published in kafila.
1.2.6- Ward Accountability Experiment:
Citizens in most Indian cities live with a multitude of civic problems – poor garbage collection, waterlogging, broken sidewalks, and poorly maintained public toilets to name a few. Unfortunately, regardless of the seriousness of these problems, it is still difficult to hold local elected representatives and bureaucrats accountable for making improvements. In part, this is because there is a lack of pertinent information available to citizens on these issues that allow them to make informed demands of those responsible, as well as monitor their performance. This is especially true at the ward level, where there is a real disconnect between the data collected by the government, and the kind of information that can describe problems in the way that citizens experience them. Data is needed that can help citizens understand local problems on an aggregate level, prioritize interventions, and hold local elected representatives and bureaucrats responsible for making change.
With the belief that the local councilor elections provided a good opportunity for citizens voices to be heard, in September 2011 Transparent Chennai along with Ethiraj College, Madras Christian College, Centre for Environmental Education (CEE), Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), Rotaract Club of Madras, Concern Awareness and Responsibility for the Environment (CARE), Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB) and The Madras School of Social Work (MSSW) conducted a ward-based, citizen-driven intervention that created information about the state of public sanitation, the walkability in the pedestrian environment and the extent and spatial concentration of surface garbage in Ward 176. The information was shared in a public meeting one week prior to the elections (which were on October 17th and 19th 2011) and was attended by councilor candidates who were asked to make commitments to improve conditions in the ward based on the data gathered. The experiment was quite successful in engaging both residents and politicians: nearly 100 volunteers collected data and many more residents attended the public meeting, as did candidates for ward-councilor from all the major political parties. The pilot also generated a great deal of media attention and has inspired sustained engagement from volunteers in the ward. Currently a citizen’s forum has been launched to follow up on the promises made at the public meeting by the newly elected councilor. To view the maps that were made visit the map section in this stream or click here.
Related Blogposts:
Transparent Chennai- Volunteer call- Ward Accountability Experiment
How do we turn the rhetoric about transparency and accountability into reality
Transparent Chennai’s ward accountability experiment- general information
Post ward accountability experiment planning meeting
Mapping for local Accountability
Notes from the post ward accountability meeting
1.2.7- Asian College of Journalism digital mapping workshop:
In collaboration with the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Transparent Chennai conducted a digital mapping module for 56 students from their New Media stream in the months of November and December. The collaboration was mutually beneficial with students learning core concepts behind digital mapping while adding new media content (in the form of blogs and short 6 minute documentaries) to issues that TC is engaged with. Students were divided into three groups and were asked to create content on three issues, which were then geo-tagged and visualized on a map. The assignments allotted to each group were as follows:
Group 1- To create place based documentaries on local needs and perceptions, which built on our ward accountability experiment in ward 176.
Group 2- To create documentaries that focused on documenting a story focusing on a particular geographical space in the Thervoy Kandigai area.
Group 3- To create documentaries on newly elected councilors ward development plans contrasting them with local needs and aspirations from local citizens in that ward.
To view the maps that were made visit the map section in this stream or click here.
Related Blogposts:
Trip to Thervoy Kandigai with students of New Media from the Asian College of Journalism