Social mapping as a tool for public participation

Abstract

Strengthening of the project aspects of social management makes it important to search for mechanisms to involve the population in local and regional development with a view to the peculiarities of the inhabitants’ perception of the territory and community, formal and informal traditions, and the practices of assistance and participation. The article considers spatial research methods rarely used in the Russian practice-joint social mapping. The prospects of using joint social mapping for diagnostics and stimulation of public participation in local socioterritorial communities, its strategy, and procedure are analyzed. It has been shown that the expert position of residents in developing a map makes it possible not only to obtain empirical data on the nature of territorial identity, territorial interests, potential tensions and conflicts, and the practices of public participation in a socioterritorial context, but also to form “areas of agreement”. It also involves residents in local and regional development. In turn, maps, by designing the common symbolic space and making possible a “full description,” may constitute public and objectified images of the territory. Referring to experience of use in a study of two urban settlements in Novosibirsk oblast, the authors note the prospects of its application at the initial stage of research and design in local socioterritorial communities. The potential and nature of public participation in this case is analyzed via the participation of citizens in the mapping procedure and its results, as well as the deciphering and interpretation of meanings inherent in the maps.