Mapping the Mappers: Exploring the Communities of VGI Users Through OpenStreetMap Data

The value of territorial knowledge is largely recognised when it's shared. Entire communities and groups of mappers have made it more tangible and visible through digital maps by using and populating OpenStreetMap. Researchers from different disciplines are capturing the implicit possibilities of observing transformations by starting from the analysis of the Wikipedia of Maps, as Fox (2012) described it because of its editable characteristic. This chapter introduces OpenStreetMap as a data source, mapping tool and a means of visual representation, illustrates what OpenStreetMap is, when, how and why it was created. Following this brief introduction, the second section focuses on the socio-economic value it produces and the economic interest shown by companies and corporations. An overview of the literature review shows the relevance of OpenStreetMap for the research and, in particular, the social research. The section also motivates the contribution of OpenStreetMap to research and considers the problem of data quality within the realm of voluntary geographic information (VGI). In the review, the authors add considerations on citizen science (mentioning extreme citizen science), social innovation (e.g., all those local initiatives based on OpenStreetMap, which were then replicated elsewhere) and humanitarian aid. Following this review, the chapter's core investigates how users collaborate on the project, how they collect data, what's in the data to learn about people, vandalism, the role of some organisational bodies in the OSM Foundation. The authors explore different methods to explain contributors' motivations and question the concept of community. The chapter illustrates the methods and tools to extract data on the users and information about an area through the Overpass-API and OHSOME APIs (reading the historical data). The case study focuses on an area in the Alpine Arc, not previously covered and lacking mapped streets. By observing the contributors’ activity, the authors explain how small enterprises can use OSM to solve local challenges in rural areas and the value of local knowledge visually represented through digital maps.