Creating a Secure Data Architecture and Digital Platform for the Borderlands Observatory Collaborative

Abstract

The Borderlands Observatory Collaborative is a group of advocates, NGOs, and academics that want to promote ethical, horizontal research on border militarization. This collaboration created a data architecture and digital platform for NGOs, advocacy groups, and academics to communicate their information to the public. ArcGIS Hub provided an interface to create a user-friendly platform to store, mix and display spatial and other information and keep data secure and private for collaborators. It takes untold sums of human effort, labor, technical know-how, people power, and geospatial tools to create datasets used in the region, including humanitarian, social, and environmental, as well as ongoing monitoring of changing issues. The purpose of this Master Project is to detail the creation of this Hub site and one case study from the project on mapping the construction, litigation, and environmental policies associated with Trump and Bush era border walls. The case study focuses on the collaborative work performed with The Sierra Club utilizing ArcGIS Hub and AGOL tools. This study utilizes Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) feedback from collaborative members to guide the creation of a secure data architecture. This study explains the techniques used from PPGIS feedback to create a Hub and applies PPGIS to construct a border wall AGOL Dashboard. The collaboration in this study is ongoing, but a noted finding from this PPGIS experience was with information that is highly sensitive, personal, and political, the collaborative tended to prefer less centralization and a diffused data sharing platform and power structure for ethical reasons.