Mapping Together: Co-Creating Community Spatial Data Infrastructures in Rural Zambia

This paper examines the participatory design and implementation of a community-based spatial data infrastructure (SDI) in rural Zambia. In contexts where formal spatial data systems are limited, it explores how local actors co-create digital mapping tools, generate spatial data, and embed spatial data management practices into everyday governance. Partnering with a farmers’ cooperative in Ibenga, the study used participatory action research to co-develop a mobile app for mapping water sources, erosion sites, and agricultural fields. Over 18 months, cooperative members engaged in iterative prototyping, field data collection, validation workshops, and discussions on data governance. The resulting grassroots SDI combined open-source tools with locally adapted training, naming conventions, and usage protocols. Findings show co-design fostered ownership and adaptability, strengthened spatial literacy through collective practice, and enabled mapping to support advocacy and planning. The project also revealed tensions around data legitimacy, institutional recognition, and sustainability. Framed through participatory infrastructure development, the study demonstrates that SDI can emerge bottom-up as a hybrid of people, tools, and routines: more than a technical product, a dynamic social process. These insights provide practical and theoretical guidance for advancing inclusive spatial data systems and democratizing spatial knowledge in low-resource settings.