Doing Public Participation on the Geospatial Web

The emergence of Web 2.0, open source software tools, and geosocial networks, along with associated mobile devices and available government data, is widely considered to have altered the nature and processes of place-based digital participation. Considerable theorizing has been dedicated to the geographic version of Web 2.0, the geospatial Web (Geoweb). To assess the theories, we draw on four years of empirical work across Canada that considers the nature of public participation on the Geoweb. We are driven by the question of how easy or difficult it is to “do” Geoweb-enabled participation, particularly participation as envisioned by researchers such as Arnstein and planning practitioners. We consider how the Geoweb could transform methods by which citizens and nonprofit organizations communicate with the state on environmental issues that affect their lives. We conduct a meta-analysis of twelve research cases and derive new findings that reach across the cases on how the Geoweb obliges us to redefine and unitize participation. This redefinition reifies existing digital inequalities, blurs distinctions between experts and nonexperts, heterogenizes the state as an actor in the participation process, reassigns participation activities in a participation hierarchy, and distances participation from channels of influence.