On the politics and the possibilities of participatory mapping and GIS: using spatial technologies to study common property and land use change among pastoralists in Central Tibet

Abstract

This article critically and reflexively examines the process of applying participatory mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to investigate land use change and common property among pastoralists in Central Tibet. It explores the tensions inherent to participatory mapping in contemporary China and asks if participatory methods of recording and asserting territoriality are a plausible subaltern intervention for Tibetans living under Chinese political rule. In development and research circles, participatory mapping has been discussed and, slowly, tested in the field as a tool for `empowerment'. Yet the political currency of literature on participatory (or `counter') mapping has been developed predominantly in contexts where there is a dialogue, however asymmetric, between state and indigenous groups, and where these cartographic interventions can identify and delineate political boundaries in ways that may allow local or indigenous groups some measure of autonomy. This article extends critical geography on participatory mapping and spatial technologies such as GIS by reflecting on their relevance to Central Tibet, which has had a significantly different political history than the locales where indigenous cartographies have been previously deployed. For pastoralists living in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, politically charged dynamics with respect to autonomy and the writ of boundary making preclude any possibility that participatory mapping can `empower' participants or give them greater authority in government negotiations: the scope for political contestation in Tibet is narrow and highly circumscribed. Even though participatory mapping is of limited utility as a tool for mobilization in the Tibetan context, the case study offers possibilities for the uses of participatory mapping and computer-driven spatial methodologies to blend information about land use and common property under different regimes of governance.