Of Intractable Conflicts and Participatory GIS Applications: The Search for Consensus amidst Competing Claims and Institutional Demands

Abstract

This article reviews the discourse about geographic information system's (GIS) potential as a tool for intervening in disputes over access to natural resources. GIS is a planning tool with striking analytical capabilities and a great public appeal that can be utilized for explicitly reasoned discussions to facilitate conflict resolution. However, the technology's reputation as an interventionist tool has been undermined by competing claims about human factors that sustain conflicts. Some scholars believe elements of a conflict are manageable and that meaningful communication between disputants will erase misconceptions and generate consensus. Others reject cooperation and instead emphasize self-interest and competition as the driving forces behind conflicts. This article investigates the two claims and argues that both the competitive push to claim independent rewards and the urge to create joint values are present in a conflict resolution. A more productive discussion of GIS's role in conflict management, therefore, involves unpacking the links between competitive forces that sustain a conflict and the social norms and group expectations that govern human behavior in society. The article discusses the links between value systems, opinions, and actions and how a GIS application might influence such human attributes to induce changes that promote cooperation. The study concludes with a case study involving the use of GIS to manage a conflict over natural resources allocation in a rural community in Southern Ghana.