Abstract:

Community mapping is a grass roots community development
initiative that strives to connect various actors in a particular area
to issues affecting that area through a local inquiry. Community
mapping is an exercise through which tacit knowledge as embedded
in people's spatial memory is converted into explicit and externally
usable knowledge. It is an open ended, dynamic, and broadly inclusive
way to bring community members, civil society, local governments
and the central government together to better understand the places
in which communities live, the social, economic and political issues
affecting those places and the means by which those issues might
be addressed. Resultantly, this programme allows for improved
information exchange between outsiders (i.e. Central government,
NG0s, Researchers, Donors, e.t.c.) and the insiders (Community
members) in the design and implementation of development projects.
Mapping tenure relations not only provides spatial information but
also socio-political relationships, such as gender dynamics, underlying
these entangled links, and socio-institutional structures that govern
natural resources.