Managing risk, governmentality and geoinformation: Vectors of vulnerability in the mapping of COVID‐19

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic, a range of technological as well as legislative measures were introduced to monitor, track and prevent the spread of the COVID‐19 virus across the world. The measures taken by governments across the world have relied upon the use of geoinformation from satellites, drones, online dashboards and contact tracing apps to render the virus more visible, which has been instrumental in two ways. First, geoinformation has been helpful in organizing efforts for capacity building, in mapping communities living in deprived urban areas (referred to commonly as ‘slums’) and their response to COVID‐19 measures. These efforts have been part of initiatives by the United Nations as well as NGOs, using geoinformation to inform urban policymaking by representing the social, political and environmental issues facing those living in deprived urban areas. And secondly, geoinformation has also been used to control the spread of the pandemic by monitoring and limiting the behaviour of citizens through various technologies. This form of geoinformation‐driven governmentality, I will contend from critical geography and surveillance studies perspective endangers ethical values such as trust and solidarity, agency, transparency along with the rights and values of citizens.

Crossing Boundaries: The Ethics of AI and Geographic Information Technologies

“…Most recently, this was exemplified during the COVID-19 pandemic where geo-information from wearables and mobile phones was used to track and limit the movement of individuals. This was for the purpose of maintaining public health, but it also shows the potential ethical challenges that having vast geo-information on where people are and where they are going can have on fairness and their autonomy [12]. Geo-information can impact dignity in situations such as when certain places are classified in negative terms, and so if people are spatially represented as belonging to these places, they can be considered to be less worthy of respect or dignity (e.g., the stigma of those living in DUAs as explored briefly in Section 2).…”

“…Geo-information technologies are relied on to "accurately and routinely monitor and map the dynamic development of these urban settlements at high spatial and temporal resolutions" [9]. The mapping of DUAs is vital for better understanding the sociodemographic characteristics [10,11] as well as capacity building potential in the face of human and environmental crises [12]. These maps are instrumental in initiatives such as its4land (which works on creating geo-information tools to improve land tenure security in East Africa) and multinational organisations such as Slum Dwellers International.…”

Development of a Land Suitability Analysis Model for Slums Relocation: The Case of Cairo, Egypt

“…Measuring and improving other aspects such as transportation, service accessibility, and risk prevention is a must especially to those dwellers relocated from deteriorated informal areas to new locations with perfect physical environment (Hovik and Stigen, 2022). The use of geoformation technologies has been helpful in organizing efforts for capacity building, in mapping communities living in deprived urban areas reflecting different perspectives of development identifying choices made that have environmental, geological and socio-economic impact due to the change in the slums intervention strategies (Oluoch, 2022). The GIS technology has become particularly helpful to design and implement models for problems of spatial dimension (Stoeglehner and Abart-Heriszt, 2022).…”

Smart Cities Mission in the Face of COVID: Scope and Scale of ‘Smart’ COVID Responses in India

“…In addition to the lack of coordination between the numerous COVID applications introduced by different levels of government in India, researchers-alongside civil society-have also raised concerns about breach of privacy and lack of transparency over the design and operation of such applications [13,14]. Privacy concerns are raised as the data collected via COVID applications could be used by the government to track the movement of people and their contacts beyond the public health mandate [15].…”

“…The idea was that data harvested from various sources, such as COVID applications and spatial mapping analysis, would be consolidated in the form of a dynamic dashboard to enable informed decision making. Nevertheless, Oluoch [14] refers to COVID-War Rooms as a site of 'doing things at a distance', since the decisions are made from a remote distance without the decision makers experiencing the effects of the virus on the ground.…”