[OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Paweł Paprota]

> And i think there are a lot of other areas in OSM that represent at least as efficient (and therefore damaging) means of cultural imperialism as remote mapping.

Acting as devil's advocate, I have a quick question - are you 100% sure
that you are not overthinking stuff? I see discussion after discussion
which delve into grand topics like diversity, freedom from proprietary
software/services, freedom from corporations, now this thing with remote
mappers robbing local people of something deep and profound...

Don't you think you're over-analyzing everything a bit too much
recently? I mean, wouldn't the energy be better spent?

Just checking. I may be wrong, in which case, please do carry on...

Paweł

On Sat, Jun 13, 2015, at 19:09, Christoph Hormann wrote:
> On Saturday 13 June 2015, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > I don't agree with everything written in these postings but they
> > certainly deserve some wider audience, and that's why I am writing
> > this here - since neither author is on these lists and I haven't seen
> > their messages mentioned or quoted anywhere.
> >
> > I think the tl;dr of both these postings could be: "Whenever you give
> > someone a map by remote mapping, you also take something away from
> > them."
> 
> Thanks for pointing to these texts, very interesting reading.
> 
> I fear though that critical discussion of the matter will most likely be 
> difficult since the perceived need for humanitarian mapping in events 
> of crisis and the perceived prominence of altruistic motives in those 
> activities is so large making even the basic notion that something good 
> does not justify something bad seems unimportant.  Critical reflection 
> on your activities in such a context is very difficult.
> 
> One important point where i think Gwilym is wrong is the idea that 
> proactive humanitarian mapping will lead to a true homogenization of 
> the map.  First of all none of the organized mapping activities 
> focusses on those areas that are worst mapped in OSM so they increase 
> differences rather than reducing them.  Efforts in true homogenization 
> would only have a chance on a much longer time horizon (i.e. decades) 
> and none of the organizations involved in humanitarian mapping think on 
> that time scale.
> 
> But more importantly the colonalization, control and "power over space" 
> is already there in the form of global coverage high resolution 
> imagery.  Remote mapping essentailly makes this information more 
> accessible.  If this is a good or a bad thing can of course be 
> discussed but OSM is not really the best address to blame here in any 
> case.
> 
> This is not meant to say remote mapping in OSM is generally a good 
> thing, many of the arguments against it have a lot of merit.  But the 
> main question should be if and how this hampers development of true 
> grassroots mapping by locals when performed within OSM and thereby 
> conteracts the primary purpose of the project and not if remote mapping 
> itself, i.e. extracting semantic information from remotely sensed data 
> that exists anyway is morally questionable in general (which is fairly 
> frivolous IMO).
> 
> And i think there are a lot of other areas in OSM that represent at 
> least as efficient (and therefore damaging) means of cultural 
> imperialism as remote mapping.  My favorite example is always map 
> rendering, there is a real lot of more or less subtle cultural bias in 
> that.  OSM does not only need more mappers with diverse cultural 
> backgrounds, it also need more diverse input in development and design 
> and the barriers for those are much higher than for mapping.
> 
> -- 
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
> 
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