In cities worldwide, tools for citizen-centric local initiatives
to facilitate collaboration and joint decision-making are
deployed as alternatives to the use of large corporate
social media platforms such as Facebook. These community
platforms often aim to empower users and enable civic
participation in local (neighbourhood) developments, but
not without encountering their own issues. Some of these
platforms struggle to find the best ways to feature hyper-
local issues on their online platforms, such as loneliness of
the elderly or the infrastructure of the local landscape. Others
might succeed in developing an easy-to-use platform, but
lack a solid, motivated and consistent user base that supports
the community initiative.
In this cahier, we explore how we can use digital, visual
and participatory research methods to strengthen civic
organisations through improving their tools for citizen
empowerment. Throughout the text, we will address both
the process (the methods for mapping and the workshops
for participatory mapping), and the substance of the
research (i.e., the outcomes of the mappings and the results
of the annotation workshops with the civic organisations).
Additionally, we will show and discuss student projects that
made use of our research, as input for their design processes.