Making Alternative Maps by Visually Impaired People as Volunteered Geographic Information
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Tanaka, M.
1TOKYO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY Email: tanaka-masahiro1@ed.tmu.ac.jp
Abstract
The recent growth of a movement called Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has promoted citizens to participate in the developing of a database of local geographic information voluntarily and actively. OpenStreetMap (OSM), which enables general public to edit the geographic information database using the Web freely and promotes making and using maps, is an example project of VGI. However, can “anyone” really make and use maps by developing information and communication technology (ICT)? The aim of this study is to examine the importance of VGI for disabled people, by investigating the properties of alternative maps made by visually impaired people using the Web. The subject of the research is a nonprofit organization called Kotoba-No-Michiannai, which is established and managed by visually impaired people in Tokyo. While the development of ICT has enhanced digitization and visualization of maps, visually impaired people have been marginalized from cartographic culture even more. Hence, Kotoba-No-Michiannai refers to this verbal guidance as a verbal map, which is made collaboratively by visually impaired people and sighted people. A verbal map is intended to guide from the nearest station to the destination building, with a series of sentences rather than a map at a glance. It is shown on the website and visually impaired people use it via the mobile phone or PC to read them with audio. There are about 70 members in Kotoba-No-Michiannai, and half of them are visually impaired people. They carry out field surveys by organizing groups of three or four people. Field surveys are necessarily carried out three times in the same place by changing the surveyor and date. Root distance is measured with road counters, and objects are checked to serve as references or dangerous objects by touching, hearing, and smelling them directly. They also have developed a system that enables visually impaired people to edit data easily and the verbal map is then shown on the website. Both Kotoba-No-Michiannai and OSM make maps with the help of amateur cartographers to overcome the limitations of conventional professionalized map-making. However, unlike OSM, which is unfolded on a global scale, the activity of Kotoba-No-Michiannai is quite localized and involves few people. The use of the verbal map is limited to provide guidance for visually impaired people, while OSM is supposed to be used for various applications. In addition, Kotoba-No-Michiannai makes verbal maps through field surveys in a traditional analogue manner. Although the development of ICT has brought about a situation called democratization of cartography, large-scale and highly advanced technologies have probably marginalized minority people from society still more. This study revealed that Kotoba-No-Michiannai devised a verbal map by using intermediate technology to involve visually impaired people in a new map culture. In other words, Kotoba-No-Michiannai raises objection to the information society, which progresses rapidly, and the map culture that follows it, and redefines the concept of maps by presenting an alternative one, while OSM criticizes professionalism of conventional cartographic maps and promotes amateurs to participate freely in making and using maps through the Web. Hence, the verbal guidance called a “map” by Kotoba-No-Michiannai can be regarded as counter-mapping for conventional map culture.