Mapping the Spread of Islam in Indonesia
Xing Liu and Caverlee Cary
GIS Center, UC Berkeley
acamus11@berkeley.edu and ccary@berkeley.edu

The spread of Islam in the areas that now together comprise the state of Indonesia was strongly associated with the movements of traders, travelers, and teachers. A web-based interactive project combining spatial and scholarly data undertaken at the GIS Center, UC Berkeley, visualizes the dynamics of the introduction and spread of Islam in what is now the largest Muslim nation in the world. Among the suite of research tools the project features a new spatial data visualization approach, CalMap, developed at the GIS Center. This presentation demonstrates current development and plans for future expansion of the project.

Dilemmas in building local GIS capacity: a case study from Indonesia
Krisna Suryanata, Geography and Urban Planning, University of Hawaii, Manoa
krisnawa@hawaii.edu

This paper examines a project designed to build local capacity for natural resource management through training and providing basic GIS equipment in order to raise the technical quality of community maps. We document the contradictions that arose from this effort. The project managed to produce excellent GIS maps but it failed in many important respects. It shows the complexity of personnel management and inter-organizational dynamics of a loose network of NGOs and how such new technologies as GIS could exacerbate the tension.

Mapping Communities: Ethics, Values, Practice
Jefferson Fox, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Manoa
FOXJ@eastwestcenter.org

The recent growth in the availability of modern spatial information technologygeographic information systems (GIS), low-cost global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing image analysis softwarehas begun to make the power that comes from recording and controlling space available not only to state funded mapmakers but also to those who were traditionally disenfranchised by maps. At the same time, this newly acquired authority to define and exert control over the use of space compromises the customary uses it is intended to protect. Spatial information technology and mapping generally promote practices that shift attention and concern away from qualities of human/environment relationship to quantifiable limits on that relationship implied by boundaries/borders. This presentation outlines a project on the uses of spatial information technologies in Indonesia, one which bridged the interests of environmental studies with the work of social activists, better preparing them with conceptual tools to evaluate the role of spatial information technology as they seek to empower rural communities.