Making visible politically masked risks: the haze case of bottom-up data visualization

This contribution investigates the potential and challenges of data visualization in stimulating a socially and legally accountable governance of environmental risk affecting public health. The visualization analysed results from ‘middle-up’ mapping efforts of the Southeast Asian haze performed by environmental NGOs and civil society. It is argued that haze governance failures are associated with both a lack of reliable evidence on the haze risk and a denied access to existing information. In response to this informational gap, unconventional solutions to state haze mapping were generated by non-governmental actors. The aim of the chapter is to explore to what extent such counter-mapping succeeded in making visible politically masked risks, triggering human agency at the individual and collective levels, and enabling a more accountable governance of the haze risk.