New information technologies in the old political economy : an exploration of community-based GIS for improving basic services for the poor in New Delhi, India

Rapid urbanization, limited neighborhood-level data, and the multiplicity of overlapping agencies in mega-cities in the developing world are creating a significant gap between citizens, particularly the poor, and government. Rising poverty rates have led NGOs and government actors to explore the role of community-based geographic information systems (GIS) in improving service provision to the poor. These participatory GIS applications focus on collecting neighborhood-level information directly from residents and providing this information to government for more need-based planning and policy-making. This thesis examines the development of three such applications in New Delhi, India, that illustrate the potential of participatory GIS production and implementation processes in strengthening communities and creating organizational change within government. However, these three projects also suggest that a stronger understanding of the political economy of information gathering and policy- making is needed if the use of resident perceptions and other types of local knowledge is to be institutionalized in government resource allocation and policy-making processes. Findings suggest, first, that, contrary to the popular belief that government lacks sufficient knowledge about the needs of the poor and that the role of participatory GIS is simply to inform "government," frontline workers have much information on the poor, and it is the higher-level officials who lack the knowledge. This knowledge differential highlights the need to deconstruct the state and consider the political economy issues that prevent information sharing between different levels of government.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Canepa, Claudia

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bishwapriya Sanyal.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33012

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33012