"Siloing" Impact: Exploring Academic and Practitioner Perspectives on Impact in Digital Participatory Mapping

Digital participatory mapping is a growing field of research and practice which engages non-experts in recording their local place-based knowledge, allowing them to advocate for change and influence policy. Using semistructured interviews, we draw on the experiences of some of the most highly cited academics and most relevant practitioners in the field of participatory mapping, we critically examine how they understand and apply the concept of impact in their work, aiming to identify any convergences, divergences, and siloing occurring in the field. We find that there is no consensus as to which projects are most “impactful”, and that understandings of impact are influenced by and influence the geospatial tools and technologies used in digital participatory mapping. We propose that this siloing and the ensuing siloed subcultures built around geospatial tools and technologies is in part responsible for disparate views on what impact means and how it should be measured in the field of participatory mapping.