Reflections on a Participatory Mapping Endeavor in Ten Rural Communities on the Garifuna Coast of Honduras

Report written & designed by

Rajan Hoyle

For

Charol, Daniela, Handrik, Lesber, Marvin, Jostin

& Elvis

vi vii

It is with great honor that I write the preface for this report. Embedded within the journey of research herein presented are concurrent journeys professional, political, artistic and academic in nature. If I am able to articulate coherently the intersections of each, I have succeeded. When I began work on what would grow to become Project Arihini, the year was 2013 and I was in my junior year at Berkeley. I remember seeing a flyer pinned to the bulletin board in the lobby of Wurster Hall announcing a winter travel scholarship available for students in the College of Environmental Design to conduct preliminary thesis research. I will never forget finishing my proposal to conduct a photovoice activity with Garifuna youth in a rural Honduran community because I did so, with the help of my god sister, through dictation while I drove up the I-5 from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. I’m so glad that I was awarded the travel grant and that this work has turned into so much more than my thesis. I also remember my domestic exchange semester at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia during my senior year. After devoting an entire summer and half of a fall semester to preparing a Fulbright application that I was proud of, I clearly had not learned the lesson of early submission. When I logged in to submit, I was notified that the application had closed just minutes before. The tears I cried that evening. After taking some time to come to terms, I focused my attention on preparing an even stronger proposal for the Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize, boasted as one of the highest honors that the University of California, Berkeley may bestow upon a graduating senior. I was sure to submit my application days before the due date. When I received notice that I was awarded the fellowship, just seconds after accepting an impressive summer internship with an urban planning consulting firm based in Los Angeles, I had to set my bike down on the sidewalk of Oakland’s Mac Arthur Boulevard and pace a few steps saying words of thanks for purpose, resource, alignment and fresh wind. This work would not have been possible without a great many individuals who have proven to me over and over again that love knows neither border nor time zone. The support that I have been shown throughout each stage of this project has truly changed me and it was such a beautiful experience seeing this work through from proposal drafting to impact evaluation and all of the twists and turns in between. I would like to send a gracious thank you to Professor Ray Lifchez. I truly appreciate him and his confidence in me. He is truly a beautiful soul and it was only through his generosity that this project took shape. I would also like to take a moment to thank Mary Crabb. Mary was responsive and effective in her role as the administrator of this Prize and she has built and maintained a seamless framework for project success. She has made herself extremely available in supporting and advocating for my cohort of Prize winners and I as we worked on our projects in various parts of the world. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the late Judith Lee Stronach. Although I never had the privilege of meeting her, the lifelong commitments she held to creativity and social justice survive her in each and every one of the projects taken on by recipients of this special, special Prize.

Let’s begin.

Rajan HoyleJune 2, 2016

La Ceiba, Atlantida Honduras

Preface—

# #

Preface vii

SECTION I: 1 CommunityProcessIntroduction 3Context 5Reach 5Methods 5Results 7Conclusions 7The Stronach 8Experience

SECTION II: 9ProjectDeliverablesIntroduction 11Conceptual 11Sketch Youth Cognitive 12Mapping Scale Maps 13Symbology 13GIS Interface 14 Credits 16

contents

# #

SECTION I:COMMUNITY PROCESS

1

3 4

Project Arihini, at its core, was a participatory mapping endeavor based in ten rural villages of the northern coast of Honduras. The project took place in the Garifuna communities of Punta Piedra, Cusuna, Ciriboya, Iriona Viejo, San José de la Punta, Sangrelaya, Cocalito, Tocamacho, Batalla and

Plaplaya. These communities span two municipalities; Iriona and Juan Francisco Bulnes, as well as two Honduran National Departments; Colón and Gracias a Dios. Through Project Arihini, data representative of natural and human features present within the ten communities

was collected. Photography was also taken of many of the community spaces and these images were geotagged with a corresponding global positioning system (GPS) point in order to reinforce the theme of visibility. These data were then separated into feature class categories of hydrology, green space/vegetation, transportation infrastructure, built environment, and barrio subdivisions. Finally, scale maps of each community were produced and data was cleaned, organized and displayed visually in a regional geographic information system (GIS). One of the essential goals of this project was to allow youth of these villages the space to consider the existing opportunities and constraints of rural life in ways that they might not have before, the space to engage with the geographic make-up of their communities and the larger region. This project was truly community-based in that our core working team consisted of dynamic Garifuna youth and the leaders of the Patronato in each community, a group dedicated to the sole purpose of protecting communal lands. Our informal, intergenerational and ever-evolving team proved to be highly effective. There is significance and urgency associated with open data in these rural communities as they are currently undergoing unprecedented changes in population dynamics and landholdings. The GIS and mapping platform created through Project Arihini is intended to serve as a drafting board from which community members may develop new ideas concerning their immediate and anticipated needs in relation to community resilience planning. ‘Arihini’ in the Garifuna language translates to visibility and this project sought to make visible the reality of those who call these communities home. The next section will delve into the geopolitical context in which this work exists.

Introduction—

“One of the essential goals of this project was to allow

youth of these villages the space to consider the

existing opportunities and constraints of rural life in ways that they might not

have before...”

5 6

There is nothing new about the technologies and processes employed in this project. That being said, Project Arihini differs from other action research endeavors of this sort in that it engages a dually indigenous populace. The members of the communities we surveyed are indigenous both in their possession of intimate knowledge of community make up and in the Afro-indegeneity ascribed to the Garifuna ethnic group of Honduras. The fact that these communities have not been formally mapped to date indicates a lack of dedicated concern for the protection of Garifuna ancestral lands by local, regional and national governmental actors. This lack of concern has resulted in adverse material implications for Garifuna communities throughout Honduras including the loss of communal lands through various extractive means as well as a tourism industry that disproportionately benefits foreigners. Project Arihini, therefore, intended to stand in this gap, to record the spatial narrative of the communities of this region from the grassroots, intentionally and preemptively. In order to ground this project in the histories of the technologies and processes it applied, there was a lot of research and reading to be done. Well before we commenced our mapping process, scholarly articles were sought out on the topics of: GIS, counter-mapping, community participation, participatory mapping, indigenous mapping, open data, information systems in developing countries and other related methods with intersecting social and spatial elements. These papers were analyzed and synthesized, and this knowledge formed the theoretical framework for the work we were embarking on. Though reading continued throughout the entire project duration, front loading the bulk of research and development helped in distilling best practices and increasing technical know-how before any data was collected. Each of the ten communities had some sort of map document maintained by its Patronato. In our initial meetings with Patronato representatives these documents were requested and discussed. Many were hand drawn with technical assistance from European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Most of the maps were general sketches identifying the ocean, the mountains, and a select few buildings within the given community. The two most specific maps in the region were a parcel map of San Jose de la Punta that was created as part of a rural land titling initiative and a flood risk map that was created for the community of Batalla. Although we were not prepared to take on the levels of specificity these two maps represented, they did serve as prominent examples of how mapping has been done in this region. In the next section I discuss the scale and scope of Project Arihini in more detail.

Context— Project Arihini spans ten communities, two municipalities and two Honduran National Departments. Advantageous was the scale of this project as these communities are adjacent to one another, forming a contiguous region of approximately twenty-miles. There was some discussion early on about including other Garifuna communities within Honduras and even Garifuna communities in the neighboring countries of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize. Given our time frame and budget, it was easily decided that the remaining communities would have to serve as opportunities to revisit and expand this work in the future or to form partnerships with, and provide technical assistance to, other organizations interested in continuing this work. The scope of the project was much less obvious in defining. Through many meetings with project mentors and volunteers in various communities we were able to formulate a list of challenges meant to inspire actionable objectives. The defining questions asserted were: 1. How might we build and sustain a participatory geographic information system of, for and by Garifuna communities? 2. How might we forge space in this endeavor for youth invested in the future of these communities?3. How might we democratize this data for use by community members and allies while simultaneously deeming it privileged knowledge worthy of safeguarding? Once the challenge was framed, all felt more secure in the goals of the project and we were able to strategize how to go about achieving them. These strategies are presented in the following section.

Reach—

THE ESSENTIALS: A Novel, iPad, Bug Spray, Journal, Camera, Lenses, Remote Timer, Passport, GPS Unit, Cell Phones, and an External Hard Drive

Methods— Project Arihini used methods from the disciplines of cartography and planning. Here I will enumerate the methods used to collect, organize and visualize project related data.

Data Collection:1. Initial community visit a. Personal and project introductions b. Meeting with representatives of the Patronato c. Meeting with youth group coordinator or representative d. Informal community walk through2. Second community visit a. Meet with group of volunteer youth

b. Discuss roles and work-flow i. Project Director: [Manages the data collected team. Ensures that data is collected properly and efficiently. Works with the Patronato representative to interface with community members during the community walk through] ii. Photographer(s): [Takes pictures of each of the public sites visited during the walk through] iii. GPS Lead(s): [Collects GPS points representative of each of the public sites visited during the community walk through] v. Scribe(s): [Document the full, proper name of each of the sites visited during the walk through. Explain any potentially confusing shorthand and or abbreviations input into GPS unit] iv. Patronato Representative(s): [Interface with community members during community walk throughs, asks permission to take photographs and GPS points of semi-public spaces or public spaces located on private property]3. Third community visit a. Mapping workshop i. Introductions and check-ins ii. Cognitive mapping exercise iii. Discussion of Project Arihini goals and objectives [Including: bodies of water/hydrology, vegetation/green space, transportation infrastructure, built environment/ public spaces, barrio/ neighborhood subdivisions ] b. Commence participatory youth mapping

Data Organization1. Transcribe field notes with proper names2. Import raw data from GPS unit and photos to a laptop3. Back up data and photos to external hard drive4. Open data in Garmin Basecamp offline software5. Input proper names where shorthand was used6. Geotag photos with a corresponding GPS point7. Export from Basecamp to Microsoft Excel8. Back up resulting CSV file to external hard drive9. Create separate CSV files with specifications necessary for use in qGIS and Google Fusion Tables

Data Visualization1. Regional Geographic Information System a. Via ‘Quantum GIS’ i. Acquire the QGIS open source software ii. Search National and Municipal GIS datasets iii. Download relevant shapefiles [Such as: road network, topography, and municipal, department and national borders] iv. Start a new project v. Add vector layers for each of the shapefiles vi. Add vector layer for GPS field data vii. Create feature classes & organize data layers viii. Style data using color, gradient, texture etc.) ix. Modify order of data layers to produce desired maps b. Via ‘Google Fusion Tables’ i. Create Google account ii. Upload images to a third party hosting site iii. Add a column for Image URLs on Excel sheet iv. Copy URL for each image into specified column v. Launch Google Fusion Tables vi. Upload CSV file with formatted project data and image URLs vii. Specify columns for latitude and longitude viii. Modify mapping icons according to community2. Community Maps a. Obtain satellite imagery of each community [Maintain a consistent scale if possible, if not document clearly any changes in scale] b. Drop imagery into Adobe Illustrator c. Identify and manually symbolize natural features [I.e. ocean, shore, green space] d. Identify and manually symbolize human features [I.e. sporting fields, bridges, docks, buildings] e. Include map title, north arrow, legend, and scale bar

7

Any discussion of the results of a project must consult its original goals. These goals, in the context of Project Arihini are restated here: 1. To create and manage a geographic information system with local community member contribution at every level. 2. To ensure active youth participation in this process. 3. To open the resulting data to community members and render it inaccessible to those with extractive motives. Creating the deliverables that would accomplish these three goals was more than a notion. We stumbled through a series of iterations and especially did not want to produce for the sake of producing and see our hard work end up rolled up in a closet somewhere collecting dust. We wanted to create products that were simultaneously factual, legible, functional, and beautiful. Factual in that map elements were illustrated and collaged painstakingly to scale. Legible in that the symbology employed was one in which final user comprehensibility was top priority. Functional in that these maps worked for those who will hopefully live with and engage with these maps far longer and in far more meaningful ways than we the designers will. Beautiful in that they were captivating, commanded attention and visually conveyed dignity and quality design. The final deliverables of Project Arihini include a booklet of compiled census-type data, a scale map of each of the ten project communities and an interactive GIS of the spatial data collected throughout the entire region. In order to evaluate the outcomes of Project Arihini, a series of interviews will be conducted with Patronato members, faith-based community leaders, local government representatives and our youth volunteers from each community. We are in the process of conducting a comprehensive evaluation of our work and look forward to sharing our findings and community feedback upon completion.

Results— Conclusions— Directing Project Arihini has taught me many things but above all it has taught me that relationships are paramount and that this work can be done in ways that are neither coercive nor manipulative. The community process will never be the shortest path toward accomplishing a goal but I truly believe that it means something to invite people into a project, to make intentional space for them to contribute their knowledge and skills. When an effective community engagement process is embraced the work produced will always be more meaningful.Morals and ethics came into play early on in conversations and interviews that I had with community members and gatekeepers who quickly became project mentors. These individuals with acute spatial and geopolitical knowledge and life experience working and living in this region were able to set Project Arihini’s modus operandi. It was these mentors that scrutinized, constructively criticized and teased out its core intentions. They evangelized on the project’s behalf whenever we were met with opposition and as they encouraged the work they contributed a crucial historical perspective. Below are brief recommendations that I have for my project mentors, the youth volunteers, and for others invested in rural community land tenure struggles in this region and beyond: • Obtain and secure titles for community lands • Strategize to obtain titles for lands traditionally and historically used by the community including the shore and mountainous terrain • Continue to record the community narrative • Keep the youth involved and informed in the community planning process • Address the necessity for more profit generating enterprise to increase quality of life and to attract the resources necessary for sustainable rural development • Leverage the grassroots groundwork that this project and a great many other change agents at work in this region represent in: — Developing resilience plans to overcome real and perceived threats — Attracting culturally responsible organizations to partner with — Demanding support from government entities at the local, regional, and national scale As a Garifuna man it was important for me to spend time in Honduras, to work actively toward learning the Garifuna language, and to use the skill set that I have developed throughout my entire undergraduate career. Throughout this project I was able to work toward remediating an issue that impassions me in a region that I owe so much to.

For more on the impact of our work in these communities

and to view our multimedia content

click the link to visit us online:

garifunagoal.com/projectarihini

How did your project make a difference in your life and in your field of inquiry or practice?I was blessed with an opportunity to spend a year in Honduras, a land from which my roots stem. In this time, I was able to focus my attention almost exclusively on the completion of a project that sat square in the intersection of my academic training, my professional goals, my creative outlet, and a regional struggle against neoliberal, geopolitical and state-sanctioned land incursions. Project Arihini allowed me the space, at a critical moment, to put my all into work that was deeply personal and political, and honestly, going into the project I wasn’t sure that I would be able to handle it. It really wasn’t until I started working and ran into roadblocks that it became apparent to me that I was never intended to do this work alone. This was the largest scale I had ever worked at and at times the ambiguity scared me. However, through this work I was able to build lasting relationships with beautiful and influential people of all ages and really present myself to these communities as someone willing to put his heart, time, energy, and skill set in the pool and contribute to the work that many have been doing in this region for years. Were there high points that you enjoyed or obstacles that taught you lessons as you carried out your project?In this past year I experienced some of my highest of highs and some of my lowest lows. Looking back, what stands out the most was the entire month of December and being able to participate in the cultural rituals and celebrations that took place. Dancing punta, eating Garifuna food daily,

the heat, the rain. I’ll never forget my daily walks through the villages and listening as Ka isani le? / ‘Whose child is this?’ turned into Buiti binafi namule / ‘Good morning little brother.’ Obstacles faced were mostly based around issues of transportation, internet connectivity, language, and communication. Once we got through them or learned to work with them, these obstacles provided great insight and helped the project evolve into one that was very context specific. Above anything, the roadblocks taught and reminded me to be patient and to persevere.

Did things happen that you did not anticipate? Were there any surprises?The funny thing about proposal writing is that it usually happens in a vacuum. In this case, my vacuum was somewhere underground in Mainstacks or Moffit libraries at Berkeley where, apparently, I overlooked how factors such as climate might greatly affect the project timeline. In terms of surprises, I was pleasantly surprised at how aware community members were of their lands. Everyone knows what land belongs to what family and there are so many unwritten rules, protocols and borders. This awareness often manifested itself as protectiveness, these communities have been promised many things by many people so it is only natural that trust had to be built between myself and community members before I was allowed to facilitate this work.

Did you work with your mentor? If so, was having a mentor beneficial for you or the project’s outcome?My relationship with my mentor was just what the project needed. Her mentorship began well before I stepped foot in Honduras, even well before I received the Prize. In one of our most memorial exchanges, I remember her apologizing for her unsolicited advice, to which I responded ensuring her that her advice is always solicited. She was very excited about the work and even sent over some of the most influential articles and case studies of the literature and I reviewed. There is no doubt in my mind that my mentor added tremendous value to Project Arihini.

Overall do you feel that you grew during your tenure, whether in personal, creative, intellectual, or professional ways?My growth has been unbelievable. My increased confidence alone is a testament to the phenomenal growth this project has revealed in me. I now know that I can carry a project through to completion. Before this project I had a desire to do something. To put the methods and theories that I studied in undergraduate courses to use in a way that would help others. I have done that. I have proven myself to myself. My Spanish has improved tremendously to the point of delegating tasks and leading this project primarily in a language that was not my first. I’ve been able to hone in on my skills in layout design, photography, and videography. I have rigorously analyzed the literature revolving around and relating to the themes explored in this project displaying my academic maturity. Although this Project Arihini might be complete, this is really only just the beginning.

Have you noticed any lasting change as a result of your project, either for you or the people you worked with or in your thinking about the issues you examined?I have already been asked to consider expanding this work to cover other regions in Honduras and in surrounding countries of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize. As far as lasting change in the communities, check in regularly at garifunagoal.com/projectarihini for updates. This is the online portal where we plan to document and display ongoing project developments as well as the multimedia content we collected and produced throughout the project duration.

In your view is there any way the management of this Prize can be improved?One improvement I would suggest is the creation of a forum where current winners of the prize can support and encourage each other throughout our project tenure. Also if past winners were connected with current winners working around similar themes or in similar regions of the world peer-to-peer mentorship could enhance collaboration between participants. I would be more than willing to speak with Prize recipients and provide any insight I may have on mapping related projects or living and working in Central America.

The Stronach Experience: Questions & Responses

DIRECTOR, PROJECT ARIHINI: RAJAN HOYLE

# #

SECTION II:PROJECT DELIVERABLES

9

12

Introduction— This section presents a visual journey from the scraps of paper and sketch maps that eventually converted themselves into our final project deliverables. We begin with a conceptual sketch that was drawn during ideation and proposal drafting. Next, are the cognitive maps drawn by youth of each of the project communities during our mapping workshops and the census-type data we obtained from local government offices. The cognitive maps lead directly into the scale maps, our vector-based reinterpretations of satellite imagery. Finally, all of our work culminates in an interactive geographic information system.

Youth Cognitive Mapping—

Conceptual Sketch—

ConceptualSketch

Youth CognitiveMapping +Census Data

ScaleMaps +Symbology

GISInterface

FALUMOGUCOCALITO MANALI

CIRIBOYA˜ IUNA

IRIONA VIEJO´

Census Data —

A booklet of census data was consolidated from documents acquired from existing surveys conducted by the municipalities of Iriona, and Juan Francisco Bulnes. It features the following information for each of the ten project communities:

Community Boundaries & Total PopulationNumber of: Families, Houses, Churches, Hotels, Kindergartens, Schools, Hospitals, Cemeteries, Dance Clubs, Community Centers, Water Tanks and Land and Maritime Community Access Points.

La Iglesia Católica Puente Ulua Pulperia Lalo

Title pages were created in order to punctuate data across communities. The images featured were all taken during our community walk-throughs. The community name is written first in Garifuna and then in Spanish and this intentional stylization became a design norm for our project documents. In this way we privilege the colloquial Garifuna names of these communities. These booklets featuring regional will be distributed to each Patronato and Catholic Church in each community and to the two Municipalities.

Simple circle graphs were created based on thefollowing ratio:

Population Community ‘X’

Total Regional Population • 100%

This booklet makes a case for data collection at regular intervals. In this way more rigorous analyses can be conducted in order to better understand demographic dynamics and plan for resilience.

‘Cognitive Maps’ were created of each of the ten communities during our youth mapping workshops. The youth volunteers worked in teams to draw their communities from memory. These maps provided crucial information about community organization before our walk-throughs and roughly depict many of the data layers of our scale maps and our GIS. These cognitive maps also proved useful in making sense of the masses of data collected on the ground, specifically in determining ‘Barrio Subdivisions’

This sketch represents one of the early concepts for a potential Project Arihini deliverable. The intent was to create a three dimensional frame that could house a series of six stackable transparencies that present a comprehensive community map when superimposed. Any combination of two or more individual transparencies could also provide valuable perspective on the ways in which these layers interact and intersect.

13 14

DUBUGATIPUNTA PIEDRA

¨ ¨ GUSUNAUGATICUSUNA

LICHUGUAGUSAN JOSE DE LA PUNTA´

IRIONA, COLON

BADAYOUGATIBATALLA

JUAN FRANCISCO BULNES, GRACIAS A DIOS

IRIONA, COLONIRIONA, COLON

Scale Maps—

Symbology—

GIS Interface—

Galpón Casabero School

Hospital

Cemetery

Community Center

Dance Club BridgeChurch

This screen grab shows the ‘Rows’ view of the Google Fusion Table. In this view, data is displayed similar to an excel worksheet. Here users may run queries on the entire database.

This screen grab shows the ‘Terrain Map’ view of the Google Fusion Table. In this view, GPS points are overlaid above vector terrain imagery.

This screen grab shows the ‘Satellite Map’ view of the Google Fusion Table. In this view, GPS points are overlaid above raster satellite imagery.

This screen grab highlights the ‘Transportation Infrastructure’ layer

This screen grab highlights the ‘Hydrology’ layer This screen grab highlights the

‘Built Environment’ layerThis screen grab highlights the ‘Barrio Subdivision’ layer

Depicted here are a selection of symbols that will appear in our final scale maps. A symbol was designed for each of the commonly recurring building/space typologies across the communities surveyed in this project. Sketches were drawn during our workshops with community youth and our team of graphic designers distilled the essence of their ideas into these simple a symbols .

These screen grabs show the ‘Info Window’ view of the Google Fusion Table. Upon clicking an icon, the corresponding photo, description, note, community, barrio, municipality, and department appear.

This screen grab highlights the ‘Base Vector’ layer

This screen grab highlights the ‘Satellite Imagery’ basemap

MANALICIRIBOYA

˜IRIONA, COLON

DUGAMACHUTOCAMACHO

¨JUAN FRANCISCO BULNES,

GRACIAS A DIOS

Soccer Field

BasketballCourt

DUBUGATIPUNTA PIEDRA

¨ ¨

MANALICIRIBOYA

˜

financed by: The Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize • project directed by: Rajan Hoyle • field logistics by: Julio G. Morales

+ Nusly Reyes • data collection by: Youth Volunteers in each community surveyed • community

liaisons courtesy of: Patronato Representatives in each community surveyed • population data courtesy

of: The Municipalities of Iriona, Colon +

Juan Francisco Bulnes, Gracias a Dios • report written by: Rajan Hoyle • report designed

by: Rajan Hoyle • photography by: Rajan Hoyle unless otherwise stated • Project Arihini logo by:

Garinagu Wagia

special thanks to: Raymond Lifchez, Mary Crabb, Dominga Suzao, Roque Bernardez, Sheela Hoyle, Elvia Reyes, Julio J. Morales, Dr. Jorge Bernardez, Dominga Martínez, Tulio Martínez, Senia Cacho, Yesmer Reyes, Romario Reyes, Liz Ogbu and Dr. Na’ilah Suad Nasir

shout out to: Josber Suazo, Kelsyn Suazo, Jilma Suazo, Mario Batiz, Madelyn Batiz, Doña Teodora, Domingo Suazo, Vita Bernardez, Juliana Morales, Don Luis, Doña Sandra, Rubi Bernardez, Tulín Martínez, Marcos Martínez, Enrique Suazo, Mateo Martínez, Rachal Burton, Vance Medrano and Iwany Martínez

Photo by: Nusly Reyes

Visit us online at www.garifunagoal.com/projectarihini