SOCIAL MAPPING

Conservation, Livelihoods and Governance Programme

Tools for participatory approaches
February 2013

Social mapping is a visual method of showing the relative location of households and the
distribution of different people (such as male, female, adult, child, landed, landless, literate, and
illiterate) together with the social structure, groups and organisations of an area.

What is it useful for?

 Exploring community structure, organisations and processes.

 Identifying who lives where in a community.
 Identifying different social groups using locally defined criteria and discussing social
inequities.
 Identifying the location of different social groups in relation to key resources, including
biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the community structures and processes that may
be relevant in influencing the distribution of benefits.
 Identifying which community members may be most vulnerable to various hazards and risks,
including those resulting from climate change, and discussing coping strategies and
opportunities.
 Identifying the location, access and use of key resources, including biodiversity and
ecosystem services, in relation to different social groups in order to inform ecosystem
services valuation and equitable benefit sharing mechanisms.

Suggested steps

Allow up to 3 hours for this exercise.

1) Agree with participants what area the map will show, such as a village, an indigenous
ancestral domain, a watershed, and so on. Social maps begin as physical maps of the
residential area of a community. The principles followed in setting up the exercise and getting
going for the social map are similar to those used with a community resource map; it might
even be possible and useful to combine both and produce one map showing social and
resource aspects of the community.

2) Ask participants to select a suitable place and medium, such as on the ground using objects
such as stones, seeds, sticks, leaves, and coloured powder; on the floor using chalk; or
directly onto a large sheet of paper, using pencils and pens. Materials collected locally such
as seeds are especially useful in enabling people to map distributions quickly and effectively.

3) Participants first prepare the outline or boundary of the map. It might be helpful for them to
start by placing a rock or leaf to represent a central and important landmark. Another option
is to draw a simple village map showing some features such as roads, paths, and
watercourses for orientation. Although it might take some time to get going, the process
should not be rushed.

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4) Other landmarks that are important to participants should be identified and drawn on the
map. These might include religious buildings, schools, health centres, traditional healers,
places where people frequently meet, community centres, and other public and business
buildings. Services or facilities such as irrigation, electricity, water, gas, telephone, and so
on should also be marked on the map.

5) The location of houses in the community should then be marked on the map (if desired, each
house can be marked as a small empty square, if using paper and pens). Participants can
then mark the houses/areas of housing in different colours to indicate which belong to
households of different well-being categories (such as rich, better-off, poor, and very poor). It
is important that the criteria used to distinguish different well-being criteria are noted on the
map and that all participants have the same understanding of the criteria and characteristics.

Figure 1: Example of village social map, with simple wealth ranking, from Ethiopia (FAO, 2001)

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6) The map can also be used to identify houses that belong to people from different social
categories (such as ethnicity, female headed-households, and large households); people
with special functions (such as a village chief); households with shops or other small
businesses; and households with relatives abroad. These categories can all be identified by
particular symbols, which should then be explained in a legend.

7) Once the map is underway, sit back and observe and only interrupt if absolutely necessary in
order to clarify something or help participants if they get stuck.

8) If the map is being drawn on the ground, once the broad outline has been established local
participants can start making a copy on to paper (indicating which direction is north). This
process is important because extra information and corrections can often arise as a result.
Also it is important that a copy or permanent record of the map is available if they want it.

9) Discuss and analyse the results. Ask participants to describe their map and ask questions
about anything that is unclear. If there are several different groups, ask each group to
present its map to the others for their reactions and comments. Are there any major
differences? If so, note these and also whether the differences are resolved.

Questions to guide discussion and analysis

The following questions can be used to guide the discussion but should be adopted and adapted
according to the focus of the exercise.

 What are the approximate boundaries of the community with regard to social interaction
and services?
 How many households are in the community and where are they located? Are living
arrangements by nuclear family or extended family?
 What are the main socio-economic groups and where do they live? Religious groups?
Ethnic groups?
 Which households are headed by females and where are they located? Is the number
growing? If so, why?
 How is land distributed for housing? Are there certain areas where poorer people are
located?
 Which households (or areas) are richer? Or less poor? Which poorer? How are ‘rich’,
‘medium’ or ‘less poor’, and ‘poor’ defined?
 Is the number of households growing or shrinking? Why? (Birth rates, out-migration, in-
migration, other)
 Has this rate caused problems for particular households or for the community in general?
 What social structures and institutions are found in the community?
 Who uses the community centres? Who uses other available services?
 How does access to economic, social, political, and natural resources differ by household
or social group?
 Which areas are most at risk from climate related (or other) events? Which groups of
people are more vulnerable to particular hazards?
 How might a proposed project / intervention impact on access to resources, livelihoods or
other opportunities for different groups in the community?

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Points to remember:
 It is not necessary to develop an absolutely accurate map – the goal is to explore local
perceptions about the social and physical structures of a community.
 Social mapping is easier when communities are small, but the process becomes much more
complex when household numbers are high. It might be necessary to adapt the tool in these
contexts.
 For a deeper analysis of different socio-economic groups and the distribution of assets
between these groups a wealth ranking or well-being assessment tool will be more
appropriate.
 The social map produced will only be a snapshot of the current situation. If a historical
perspective is needed or arises and local participants have sufficient time, it might be useful
to draw a series of maps to illustrate changes over time.
 Local participants should be encouraged to build as much of the diagram as possible without
interruption and to suggest anything else that should be recorded.
 Before using this tool read the accompanying document, A guide to using tools for
participatory approaches.

For further information

World Bank (2005) Poverty and Social Impact Analysis Sourcebook

http://go.worldbank.org/ZGZHJEDBZ0

This tool is based on Social mapping in the World Bank (2005) Poverty and Social Impact Analysis
Sourcebook

FFI’s Conservation, Livelihoods and Governance programme is

financially supported by Anglo American.

The development and public dissemination of this tool has been co-
funded by the British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership.

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Cambridge, CB1 2JD
Telephone +44 (0) 1223 571000
Fax +44 (0) 1223 571000
Email info@fauna-flora.org

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