Once the maps were developed, they were used at community meetings, serving to focus discussion on areas of concern within the community. The maps were very well received in both communities, and it was obvious that community members shared ownership of this representation of their neighborhood. Besides being a vehicle for transfer of ownership of the process, and as a technique to facilitate discussion at community meetings, these maps had several other benefits. For example, youth tended to be drawn into discussions with the adult members of communities because youth were more often literate and could interpret photograph captions and other labels on the map. Also, smaller versions of the maps, when shown to individuals in government departments and NGOs, seemed to reify the existence of the communities to officials, and legitimize the perspective of the slum dwellers. Because the medium was GIS-produced maps, this perspective was presented in the language of the dominant (scientific) paradigm.