The State of Information after the Fukushima Disaster - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 78

as they are being made. In Dominique Pestre's words,
controversies help to “symmetrically map the actors, watch
them as they make sense of the world and argue” [PES 07].
They also show the role played by the stakeholders, who are,
according to Michel Callon, “bolder than sociologists or
economists as they do not hesitate to question and rearrange
all the 'fundamental' notions we use to describe society”
[CAL 06, p.137].
Following [VEN 10, p.261-262] 2 , the controversy analyzed
in this study has four characteristics:
- It involves different types of actors who all contribute to
the issue of quantifying radiation (members of the
government, laws, radiation measurements, civil society
participants, Geiger counters).
- It “withstands reductionism”: the debate cannot be
reduced to the opposition between a “manipulating”
government and civil society seeking the truth. On the
contrary, analyzing how the data on radiation were mapped
reveals a more pragmatic approach to mapping, as several
cartographers mixed data from the government with those
from alternative sources.
- It is debated: the debate over the level of radiation put
different stakeholders in competition for the position of
reliable information provider and to obtain “property rights”
on the problem [GUS 08], including through the creation of
maps.
- It is conflictual: conflicts and discussions emerged
among the various illustrations of the post-Fukushima
radiation situation, among which emerged the maps. The
controversy was followed by online discussions and debates,
where data and maps played a key role.
2 A fifth property: “controversies display the social in its most dynamic
form” will not be discussed here as its level of meta-sociological analysis
goes beyond the scope of this study.