Power over users: its exercise by system professionals
Communications of the ACM
GIS for district-level administration in India: problems and opportunities
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
Information Systems and Global Diversity
Information Systems and Global Diversity
Creating conditions for participation: conflicts and resources in systems development
Human-Computer Interaction
Technological frames of stakeholders shaping the SDI implementation: a case study from India
Information Technology for Development - Special issue, part I: Implementation of spatial data infrastructures in transitional economies
Building participatory HIS networks: A case study from Kerala, India
Information and Organization
Information Technology for Development
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Attempts to alleviate land degradation and water scarcity in arid/semi-arid regions of India have historically been carried out within the ambit of government schemes implemented disparately by concerned departments. These sectoral methods are being increasingly replaced by a watershed-based approach in which local communities are encouraged to assume ownership of development programs, albeit within the government's overarching control. This decentralized model of governance has also in some cases had a positive impact on the more effective use of ICTs like Geographic Information System (GIS) in locally relevant applications. In this paper, the need for integrating disparate knowledge systems around GIS-based applications to mitigate land degradation, and the facilitating role of participation in achieving such integration, are discussed. It is argued that such participatory processes can be effectively enabled through communicative action whilst taking into consideration the historically existing power asymmetries. The Habermasian Ideal Speech Situation (IDS) provides a conceptual framework to argue how such communicative action can be enabled. This framework is applied to an empirical analysis of a GIS project for land management in India. The paper contributes to unpacking knowledge systems implicated in the use of GIS for addressing land degradation, foregrounding the importance of indigenous knowledge, and in espousing the crucial need to draw upon critical social perspectives in IS research.