Motivation, Empowerment, and Cognitive Style in a Community of Practice

<p>Social work and Participatory GIS researchers have focused on the social empowerment of disadvantaged groups while neglecting psychological aspects of empowerment. Social empowerment generally refers to an increase in political or economic power for the disadvantaged. Psychological empowerment generally refers to internal , motivational processes. Community development projects must often balance the two, and the diverse needs, interests, and ideologies of practitioners and participants. It is proposed that two psychological theories can explain how psychological empowerment occurs and varies. These theories are the Empathiser-Sytemiser theory of cognitive style (Baron-Cohen et al., 2005), and Self-Determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000). The links between these theories and the implications for empowerment are explored through a case study of a community gardening group and community mapping in Wellington, New Zealand. The thesis argues that empowerment-oriented efforts are especially valuable during economic decline and transition.</p>

Motivation, Empowerment, and Cognitive Style in a Community of Practice

<p>Social work and Participatory GIS researchers have focused on the social empowerment of disadvantaged groups while neglecting psychological aspects of empowerment. Social empowerment generally refers to an increase in political or economic power for the disadvantaged. Psychological empowerment generally refers to internal , motivational processes. Community development projects must often balance the two, and the diverse needs, interests, and ideologies of practitioners and participants. It is proposed that two psychological theories can explain how psychological empowerment occurs and varies. These theories are the Empathiser-Sytemiser theory of cognitive style (Baron-Cohen et al., 2005), and Self-Determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000). The links between these theories and the implications for empowerment are explored through a case study of a community gardening group and community mapping in Wellington, New Zealand. The thesis argues that empowerment-oriented efforts are especially valuable during economic decline and transition.</p>

Spatial Tools for Integrated and Inclusive Landscape Governance: Toward a New Research Agenda

Participatory spatial tools—community mapping, PGIS, and others—find increasing resonance among research and non-governmental organizations to make stakeholder claims and community perspectives explicit for more inclusive landscape governance. In this paper, we situate the use of participatory spatial tools in debates on integrated landscape approaches and inclusive development. We show that using such spatial tools is not new but argue that their application for inclusive landscape governance requires a new research agenda that focuses on expanding the scope of application of the tools, improving the inclusivity of the processes, and developing new technologies.

Malolos Heritage District: A cultural heritage mapping and inventory – 2020-2021

In the past, Cultural Mapping and Inventory has been used as a technique by some professionals in the 'Community Development' sector as a way of 'Mapping' community assets. How it was undertaken was largely dependent on who was doing it and why, most commonly it was used as a tool to identify the resources of communities and was referred to as 'Community Mapping’. If one were to ask what is Cultural Mapping we would firstly have to say that it involves mapping the Culture of who or what you are, be it a tribe, organization, community, group, school, association, business or an individual - to find your unique assets or strengths. Culture can in this case be defined as your intellectual property, your special way of being or doing, the purpose of your existence, the business you are in (or would like to be) or the special story that you have to tell, such as your reason for doing what you do. It is a process that has a purpose, and through the use of a proven ‘system’ Cultural Mapping outcomes can be harnessed and directed to create sustainable futures. Cultural mapping and inventory are an ongoing process. And many of its benefits can only be achieved through sustained efforts to update the cultural data and to compare it over time. Because of this, a need to comprehensively consolidate local culture profile and generate baseline data for cultural statistics of Malolos since it was Declared Heritage District in 2001. There would be comprehensive and detailed mapping and inventory that will be produced to serve as guide for validation of the remaining cultural heritage of Malolos that still survive amidst the surging urbanization of Malolos. The consolidated local culture profile and generate baseline data for cultural statistics that will recommend mechanisms to integrate profiles and baseline statistics in LGU development plans, programs, and activities.

Community Based Assessment of the Changes of Provisioning Ecosystem Services of Aral Haor of Sylhet District

Haor is a well-known wetland feature in Bangladesh because of its dynamic ecosystem which is changeable with the seasonal variation. The majority people of the community are critically dependent on the haor. This paper attempts to analyse the provisioning ecosystem services of Aral Haor of Sylhet District, their changes and why the changes occurred during the last 30 years since 1990 to 2020 through community assessment. The papers argues that the community based approach integrates the local people to reveal the actual scenario of the livelihood dependency on the provision ecosystem services as they are the main user of the provisioning services. Thus the primary data were collected through observation, FGD, Community Mapping and interview with experts. The study found that community the service providing area of the Aral haor have not been changed in mentionable level over the 30 years, however the shape of the haor have been changed slightly due to high sedimentation. Along with rice cultivation during dry season, natural irrigation, fishing and bird nesting were most important to provisoing services to the community which have been changes due to both natural and anthropogenic activities. The study concludes that even having importance of the Aral hoar, not any measurer has been taken by local authority to conserve the Aral hoar ecosystem services those are very vital for the livelihood of the thousands of community people living nearby.

RESILIENCE ACADEMY STUDENT INTERNSHIP MODEL AS AN INNOVATIVE WAY TO ENHANCE GEOSPATIALLY LITERATE FUTURE WORK FORCE IN AFRICA

This paper is based on the experiences from Resilience Academy project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where students’ are engaged to a mass-internships for a period of 8-12 weeks. Student internship model of the Resilience Academy is designed to work with the local organisations to conduct geospatial data collection campaigns based on the use of various open-source data and tools combined with community mapping and digital online working. Simultaneously, students’ exposure to practical training during the internship provides them with relevant applied geospatial skills, which increase their future employment opportunities and participation in informed decision-making.