全球智库信息集成服务系统

Giacomo Rambaldi, and his fellow guest editors - together with the series editor, Holly Ashley - have an achievement to be proud of in this latest PLA publication. Not only is the issue carefully constructed ­ from what must have been a mound of competing material from the September 2005 conference in Nairobi­ but they have achieved this feat in a remarkably short turn-around time. Mapping for change: practice, technologies and communication provides, basically, an overview of the state of the art regarding the practice of PGIS. "What is PGIS?" You may ask. It is, put simply, the merger between geographical information systems and participatory mapping. I say put simply, because we are told in the opening chapter that PGIS has not always been digital, and GIS is not the only technology that underpins PGIS. But that is something the reader needs to find out for him or herself...

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA, formerly PLA Notes) is the world's leading series on participatory learning and action approaches and methods. PLA publishes articles on participation aimed at practitioners, researchers, academics and activists. All articles are peer-reviewed by an international editorial board. See: www.planotes.org

Article in: PLA 54. Guest-edited by: Giacomo Rambaldi, Jon Corbett, Michael K. McCall, Rachel Olson, Julius Muchemi, Peter A. Kwaku Kyem, Daniel Wiener, Robert Chambers

Keywords: mapping, Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS), PPGIS, Geographic Information Technologies and Systems, geo-spatial information management tools, sketch maps, participatory 3D models (P3DM), aerial photographs, satellite imagery, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), software.

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