Participation from a geospatial perspective

Participation in societal processes and contributing to decisions are trademarks of an open and democratic society. Successful participation requires informed opinions, which in a majority of issues need orientation in and assessment of spatial context. Ongoing digitization of (not only) geospatial information has greatly increased the accessibility of spatial views, and at the same time facilitates the generation of personal location-centric views and communications. Access to geospatial technologies is the key driver for connecting individuals with the rich and diverse collection of spatial data services. These provide an indispensable context for opinions on issues centred on locations. Apart from this obvious and straightforward case for explicit geospatial enablement and support of participative processes, this paper presents a wider context and issues to be considered by designers of public participation. Drivers of geospatial participation are discussed from the technologies, competences, and policies perspectives, also considering the challenges of prevalent ‘nimby’ mindsets motivating intellectual shortcuts for some citizens participating in decision processes. In addition, the dominance of social media in public discourse simultaneously facilitates informed contributions as well as posing the risk of less informed mirroring of popular views with a predominantly negative attitude. The final section showcases recent sample elements from the author’s teaching experience dedicated to introducing citizen science for collaborative generation of knowledge and in turn using this as a backdrop for participation initiatives. With scientific evidence frequently ignored or confronted with pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, the foundations of today’s democracies based on representation and participation are clearly endangered.