Conceptual boundaries of real property A socio-technical analysis of the cadastral system

1. Conceptual boundaries of real propertyA socio-technical analysis of the cadastral system Presentation Aalborg Maarten Ottens Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

2. Existing concepts/theories regarding (complex, technical) systems • Social sciences : Actor-Network Theory, descriptive, Callon, Latour • All elements are taken as intentional • Physics : Complex Systems Theory, predictive • Nonlinear dynamics, modelling systems by modelling the elements with simple rules and interacting • Engineering sciences : Systems Engineering, prescriptive • All elements as rational, logic, within laws of physics and logic

3. Static and dynamic system views • Static system view, complexity in amount of elements, sorts of elements and relations • Dynamic system view, complexity in phases in design approach, e.g. life-cycle design Structure Process Structure Process Structure

4. Actor 2 2 Actor iii ii iv Social element 3 1 Technical element v i vi Social element 3 1 Technical element Basis model (static) • Intentionality • Functioning depending on laws of nature • Social versus nature laws

5. An example Systems differ qua involvement of actors and social factors:

6. person owner right society land owned What is the cadastral system • Ownership of real property

7. actors in cadastral system • Physical humans (intentionality) (professionals/users) • Organizations (collective int.) (formal) • Groups (informal) • Owner (user) • Companies (Professionals: surveyors, lawyers; Financial institutes: Banks, ..; Computing: Software and Services;) • Authorities (Government, judiciary (and police); government officers;) • Schools (Universities etc) • Groups (squatters, social movements)

8. social elements in cadastral system

9. technical elements in cadastral system • Satellites • Computers and networks • Coordinate measuring devices • Databases, archives; documents and maps • Markers (boundary, control points, sign posts) Are markers symbols/signs?

10. Designing: What are the boundaries of the static cadastral system? (What to be designed?) Essential for functioning (& open for design) Trust (in others, in authorities), sense of “beruf”

11. Designing: How to design? Engineers: if it exists, use it, don’t design it, but if needed improve it (standards, open source software) This is then only applied to elements considered open for design. In cadastral systems however, certain other elements are so important to the functioning that they need to be designed/improved as well. For social elements the process design seems more important then the product design

12. Discussion: theory • Social elements have material grounding (documents, boundary marks, legislation, ..) abstract social versus physical technical • Is there a conceptual distinction between formal and informal social elements as being designed and emerged? • Markers, social or technical elements? Data?

13. Discussion: designing • For design next to structure also process design is needed. Engineers do it, but only for technology • Social elements are in Cadastral systems more important then in ‘technical’ socio-technical systems like transportation systems for functioning • The classical sense of engineering design does not work for cadastral systems, because informal social elements and trust etc are not taken into account

14. Conclusion • To deal with intentions and ‘non-designable’ elements we must look at the dynamic system Because these elements are merely influenced then designed, and influencing happens through processes rather then designed structures.