GIS and Public Engagement: ‘Geo-Spatial Support’ and the Space of Flows

For thirty years, the social GIS literature has warned that powerful mapping technologies can become normalized in society through naïve empiricism. Technologies come to seem value-free and even to transcend history in their usefulness, while at the same time, underpinning power laden networks that promote uneven development. Supporting the findings of the present study, the public participation GIS (PPGIS) literature has argued that few meaningful paths to participation in local planning exist. Here, three major findings are presented based on previous ethnographic case study research in a Central California city: 1) Even when used without dynamic mathematical models, GIS leverages time in flows of space. 2) To accomplish this, GIS coordinates spatial and spatialized information which is then used to avoid public scrutiny in local planning. 3) This convergence of power-knowledge and dominance has created a virtually hidden ‘internal’ space within cities connected to what Manuel Castells terms the space of flows. These findings suggest that the usefulness of GIS in local planning centers on the manipulation of space and, to a larger degree than in other mapping technology, time. In this way, technologies like GIS gain power by following more closely the flows of space in nature. This paper discusses the spatial implications of these findings bridging the structuralist and post structuralist theories of Manuel Castells, David Harvey, and Michel Foucault, concluding with policy suggestions for a more empowered community GIS in planning.