Spatial Practices in Digital Work: Calling for a Spatial Turn in Information Systems Research

The growing use of digital media in the workplace is shifting work to digital platforms, this study explores the role of the physical office space in modern organisations where digital work is the norm. We capture the way in which digital media modulates the production of space by tracing the physical and digital interactions of a software development team in a global IT company. Taking a performative and ontogenetic view of space we conceptualise two types of spatial practices that form distinct modulations and assemblages of features of the physical and digital environment. The first spatial practice modulates space to support recurrent work activities, while the second spatial practice modulates space to support ephemeral and focused work activities. This study contributes to the IS literature with a conceptual basis to study the interconnected nature of physical space in digital work in modern workplace settings. It calls for greater attention to space as a performative and constitutive element of digital work in information systems research

Towards a Participatory Methodology for Community Data Generation to Analyse Urban Health Inequalities: A Multi-Country Case Study

This paper presents results from the application of a methodological framework developed as part of an ongoing research project focused on understanding inequalities in the healthcare access of slum residents of cities in four countries: Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. We employ a systematic approach to produce, curate and analyse volunteered geographic information (VGI) on urban communities, based on a combination of collaborative satellite-imagery digitization and participatory mapping, which relies upon geospatial open-source technologies and the collaborative mapping platform OpenStreetMap. Our approach builds upon and extends humanitarian mapping practices, in order to address the twofold challenge of achieving equitable community engagement whilst generating spatial data that adheres quality standards to produce rigorous and trusted evidence for policy and decision making. Findings show that our method generated promising results both in terms of community engagement and the production of high-quality data on communities to analyse urban inequalities

AMBIVALENT IMPLICATIONS OF HEALTH CARE INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A STUDY IN THE BRAZILIAN PUBLIC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

This article evaluates social implications of the ""SIGA"" Health Care Information System (HIS) in a public health care organization in the city of Sao Paulo. The evaluation was performed by means of an in-depth case study with patients and staff of a public health care organization, using qualitative and quantitative data. On the one hand, the system had consequences perceived as positive such as improved convenience and democratization of specialized treatment for patients and improvements in work organization. On the other hand, negative outcomes were reported, like difficulties faced by employees due to little familiarity with IT and an increase in the time needed to schedule appointments. Results show the ambiguity of the implications of HIS in developing countries, emphasizing the need for a more nuanced view of the evaluation of failures and successes and the importance of social contextual factors

Exploring the use of IoT data for heightened Situational Awareness in centralised monitoring control rooms

This paper traces the expansion of a network of IoT sensors to improve the effectiveness of a centralised control room in Brazil in anticipating natural hazards. This centralised model relies on using IoT data by highly qualified experts replacing previous smaller local structures. We draw on the notion of Situational Awareness to carry out the study. Results show that although the operators were not always familiar with the characteristics of locations, the use of IoT data heightened their situational awareness in the centralised control room by improving perception and comprehension. However, they still relied on local knowledge and learned experiences to support projection and anticipation of risks. The study highlights that although data analytics systems are capable of expanding operators’ perception of local elements, they must be complemented by local richer forms of information, needed to anticipate risks and make critical decisions with major impact on local population

Co-designing grounded visualisations of the Food-Water-Energy nexus to enable urban sustainability transformations

In the past few years, the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) Nexus has emerged as a key concept to address the complex relationships and interdependencies between food, water, and energy systems. Cities are an important context for understanding the FWE nexus given their significant footprints and complex socio-ecological systems, but researchers have only recently started to explore an explicit urban perspective on food, water, and energy interrelationships. This paper tackles a particularly significant knowledge gap in this context by introducing an approach to co-design visualisations of the FWE nexus that are understandable and actionable for the various stakeholders involved in urban governance such as citizens, communities, governments, non-governmental and private-sector organisations. Drawing on user-centred design and inspired by the dialogic pedagogy of Paulo Freire, we present and evaluate the co-design process of a FWE nexus visualisation tool for stakeholders engaged with pre-school education in Słupsk, Poland. Our results provide evidence that this co-design process has been effective to developing a new critical consciousness in the participants about how their everyday choices are related to the FWE nexus, enabling them to change perspectives, leading to more sustainable choices. We propose that our co-design process can be used to develop 'grounded visualisations' of the FWE nexus, i.e., visualisations that are grounded in the experiential situations and lived realities of stakeholders, thus offering an effective support for decision-making that could open pathways to sustainability transformations

The effect of intra-urban mobility flows on the spatial heterogeneity of social media activity: investigating the response to rainfall events

Although it is acknowledged that urban inequalities can lead to biases in the production of social media data, there is a lack of studies which make an assessment of the effects of intra-urban movements in real-world urban analytics applications, based on social media. This study investigates the spatial heterogeneity of social media with regard to the regular intra-urban movements of residents by means of a case study of rainfall-related Twitter activity in São Paulo, Brazil. We apply a spatial autoregressive model that uses population and income as covariates and intra-urban mobility flows as spatial weights to explain the spatial distribution of the social response to rainfall events in Twitter vis-à-vis rainfall radar data. Results show high spatial heterogeneity in the response of social media to rainfall events, which is linked to intra-urban inequalities. Our model performance (R2=0.80) provides evidence that urban mobility flows and socio-economic indicators are significant factors to explain the spatial heterogeneity of thematic spatiotemporal patterns extracted from social media. Therefore, urban analytics research and practice should consider not only the influence of socio-economic profile of neighborhoods but also the spatial interaction introduced by intra-urban mobility flows to account for spatial heterogeneity when using social media data

Community mapping based on Milton Santos as a tool for disaster response and risk management in self-built communities: case study of El Pacífico, Medellín, Colombia

This paper aims to showcase the community mapping process that took place in the El Pacífico neighborhood in the city of Medellín, Colombia, which runs alongside the urban-rural border of the high slope of the city’s Comuna 8. The geographical and socio-economic challenges that the community has historically faced have come to light throughout the years in the form of geological hazards and disasters that have led to the destruction of several buildings in the neighborhood, threatening the community’s permanence. As these scenarios intensified, the community sought to participate in research projects with both local and international partners to better understand how to improve their disaster risk management practices. URBE Latam, which is one of these experiences, has been working to improve the neighborhood’s data generation practices, adopting the territorial definitions proposed by Milton Santos in Espaço e Método, coupled with participatory mapping strategies for disaster risk reduction during a three-year period. This has resulted in the mapping of El Pacífico and the improvement of the local grassroot organization’s territorial management practices. These maps have served as tools for the community’s empowerment when dealing with public institutions, as well as for planning and managing their own territorial agendas for the future

Need for an integrated deprived area "slum" mapping system (IDEAMAPS) in low-and middle-income countries (LMICS)

Ninety percent of the people added to the planet over the next 30 years will live in African and Asian cities, and a large portion of these populations will reside in deprived neighborhoods defined by slum conditions, informal settlement, or inadequate housing. The four current approaches to neighborhood deprivation mapping are largely siloed, and each fall short of producing accurate, timely, and comparable maps that reflect local contexts. The first approach, classifying "slum households" in census and survey data, reflects household-level rather than neighborhood-level deprivation. The second approach, field-based mapping, can produce the most accurate and context-relevant maps for a given neighborhood, however it requires substantial resources, preventing up-scaling. The third and fourth approaches, human (visual) interpretation and machine classification of air or spaceborne imagery, both overemphasize informal settlements, and fail to represent key social characteristics of deprived areas such as lack of tenure, exposure to pollution, and lack of public services. We summarize common areas of understanding, and present a set of requirements and a framework to produce routine, accurate maps of deprived urban areas that can be used by local-to-international stakeholders for advocacy, planning, and decision-making across Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). We suggest that machine learning models be extended to incorporate social area-level covariates and regular contributions of up-to-date and context-relevant field-based classification of deprived urban areas

Cartographic resources for equitable university-community interaction in slum areas

Cartographic resources play a crucial role in facilitating communication across various sectors, including research projects focused on low-income communities. Despite this, some researchers still adhere to colonialist and exploitative approaches. This study aims to promote equitable university–community interaction though cartographic resources, aid academic and vulnerable community users in choosing a better platform for their work, and provide insights to developers for improving the platforms to better serve the user profiles of community members. To achieve this, we examined the use of cartographic resources in five projects within low-income communities (commonly referred to as favelas or so-called “slums”) in three Brazilian cities, all guided by equitable principles. The study unfolds in four stages: (i) data collection from documents and interviews; (ii) systematization into seven analytical categories—cartographic resources, data, personnel, processes, equipment, general objectives, and specific objectives; (iii) analysis of eight cartographic resources; and (iv) a critical examination of the outcomes. The synthesis of the collected information identified 65 characteristics/demands, with 17 common to all projects, including vector feature creation, thematic map design, printed map usage, and satellite imagery. We also identified 53 geographic information system (GIS) functionalities required for the projects, predominantly related to vector data generation and editing. The outcomes demonstrate the benefits of project methodologies, contributing to a decolonial university–community praxis. Additionally, they underscore the potential of digital cartographic resources, functioning not solely as data collection tools but also as powerful instruments that empower slum residents to advocate for improvements and foster local development

The role of data in transformations to sustainability : a critical research agenda

This article investigates the role of digital technologies and data innovations, such as big data and citizen-generated data, to enable transformations to sustainability. We reviewed recent literature in this area and identified that the most prevailing assumption of work is related to the capacity of data to inform decision-making and support transformations. However, there is a lack of critical investigation on the concrete pathways for this to happen. We present a framework that identifies scales and potential pathways on how data generation, circulation and usage can enable transformations to sustainability. This framework expands the perspective on the role and functions of data, and it is used to outline a critical research agenda for future work that fully considers the socio-cultural contexts and practices through which data may effectively support transformative pathways to sustainable development