GIS and Society: A Critical Assessment

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GIS and Society A Critical Assessment
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Critiques in the academic literature

• Sheppard, E. 1995. GIS and Society Towards a
  Research Agenda. Cartography and Geographic
  Information Systems 22(1)5-16.
• Pickles, J. (ed). 1995. Ground Truth
• http//www.geo.wvu.edu/i19/papers/position.html

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Initiative 19 GIS and Society The Social
Implications of How People, Space, and
Environment are Represented in GIS (began
February 1996).

• The initiative focused attention on the social
  contexts of GIS production and use and addresses
  a series of conceptual issues
• In what ways have particular logic and
  visualization techniques, value systems, forms of
  reasoning, and ways of understanding the world
  been incorporated into existing GIS techniques,
  and in what ways have alternative forms of
  representation been filtered out?
• How has the proliferation and dissemination of
  databases associated with GIS, as well as
  differentiatial access to spatial databases,
  influenced the ability of different social groups
  to utilize information for their own empowerment?
  
• How can the knowledge, needs, desires, and hopes
  of marginalized social groups be adequately
  represented in GIS-based decision-making
  processes?
• What possibilities and limitations are associated
  with using GIS as a participatory tool for more
  democratic resolution of social and environmental
  conflicts?
• What ethical and regulatory issues are raised in
  the context of GIS and Society research and
  debate?

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GIS as a tool?

• The idea that GIS, or any technology, is simply a
  problem-solving tool views technology as the
  means to achieve a certain end. In this view, the
  goals are set independently, and technological
  development is the process of finding the tool
  that offers the best means to achieve that goal.
  In practice, however, it is difficult to separate
  means from ends.

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• In other words, the social consequences of
  technologies go far beyond problem-solving to
  actually influencing the goals themselves,
  sometimes in dramatic ways (development of trade,
  cataloging of resources, definition of property
  ownership).

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GIS is not just a tool for processing
geographical information.

• It is a social technology incorporating an entire
  institutionaland intellectual infrastructure that
  delivers and markets GIS. It has to be understood
  within the social context in which it was
  developed.

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Much of the lead in GIS technology has been taken
in North America and Great Britain. Thus it
reflects

• Priorities of US society, such as demands for
  military surveillance,
• The degree to which the private sector has
  dominated the development of GIS,
• Type types of problems that potential customers
  for GIS wish to solve,
• Factors affecting data availability and cost,
• Weakness of geography as an intellectual
  discipline in the US, which affects the degree to
  which geographic expertise is used in the
  development of GIS.

8
GIS is based on Boolean or mathematical logic

• Deductive logic thought to allow absolute truth
  or falsity of analytical statements to be
  assessed. But no absolute grounds exist for
  asserting the validity of mathematical logic.
  Alternative logics cannot be dismissed as
  inferior or subjective.
• Boolean logic is fundamentally an instrumental,
  or agorithmic, logic, directed to finding
  solutions to problems. But communication involves
  a different form of rationality.
• The focus on logic and problem-solving may hide
  other options and opportunities (eg siting of
  toxic waste dump).

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Does GIS place limits on ways of representing
space?

• Computational operations on spatially referenced
  information must conform to basic geometric rules
  and assumptions, such as those specifying the
  continuity or divisibility of space, and
  excluding simultaneous occupancy of the same
  location in space-time by different objects.
• In non-Western thought the range of possible
  conceptions of space is presumably much greater.

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Problems with pattern analysis

• Different processes may produce the same pattern
  and the same pattern may be produced by different
  processes.
• This requires a theory to identify what the
  important relations are. GIS lacks this, often
  ignoring underlying theories.
• It provides a list of winners and losers, but
  provides no understanding as to why the
  differences occur.

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GIS reinforces a tendency to rely on secondary
data sources for empirical analyses.

• Geographical analysis driven by the availability
  of data, rather than letting data collection be
  driven by theory.
• Social power of information systems private
  firms can get our credit card ratings, but we
  cannot get detailed financial information about
  those private firms

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Does GIS facilitate equal access to geographical
information for all social classes?

• Information technology has placed information and
  the equipment to process it in the hands of more
  users, linked in increasingly complex ways.
• But the rapid development has resulted in
  increasingly sophisticated ways of using the
  information infrastructure to monitor and
  influence behavior.
• Groups with access to GIS maybe able to make a
  better argument in conflictual political
  processes.
• Polarization of users and non-users.

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Socio-economic applications in GIS

• Is there any real substance?
• Real estate, energy delivery, agribusiness,
  tourism, and communications, insurance,
  retailing, market analyses, delivery services,
  telecommunications, fast food location
  strategies, and so on.
• Missing are the analyses of ethical and political
  questions that emerge as GIS institutions and
  practices are extended into socioeconomic
  domains.
• Concepts, practices, and institutional linkages
  remain unproblematized treated as normal and
  reasonable ways of thinking and acting.

14
The pursuit of social goals (eg land
distribution) through GIS is a political process
and cannot ignore this fact, no matter how much
GIS may allow us to simulate possible alternative
decision-making scenarios. Value-neutral GIS does
not exist.

• GIS empowers the powerful and disenfranchises the
  weak and not so powerful through the selective
  participation of groups and individuals.

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Data are usually treated unproblematically,
except for technical concerns about errors.

• But every data set represents a multitude of
  social relations.
• In general, the more powerful do the finding out
  about the less powerful.
• Since most data are collected by the state (eg
  census data), GIS can be criticized as being a
  handmaiden of the state.
• This wouldnt be a problem if all states were
  benign, but they arent.

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• GIS neglects themes that are not included in the
  data.
• The poorer the country, the worse and less the
  data. Thus much of the world is neglected within
  GIS analyses.
• Alternative worlds for which there are no data
  are ruled out or excluded.

17
Information gathering as a commercial activity,
producing a product for sale (eg weather
information)

• Disadvantaged groups are least able to purchase
  the information that they need, especially
  information that is expensive to collect.
• Although more accurate information can improve
  understanding, it can also enable actors to act
  in more complex ways (eg airline pricing).
• The more complex a society becomes, the more
  complex and expensive the information it needs to
  make sense of itself.
• GIS does not incorporate indigenous knowledge.
• Diverse information possessed by different racial
  groups, classes, and genders is usually excluded.

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Surveillance capabilities of GIS

• GIS has been linked with the academy, the state,
  and capital.
• Information society as a misnomer that hides
  the increasing surveillant capability of state
  institutions and transnational corporate
  enterprises (see Pickles 1991).

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Example Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve

• Settlers were already living in the reserve when
  it was established in 1979. Others have moved in
  more recently.
• Conservation International routinely monitors the
  situation in this biosphere reserve to detect
  illegal deforestation.
• The Mexican military has access to this
  information and has evicted entire villages
  (coincides with efforts to wipe out EZLN).
• GIS seen by many as an ominous system of
  surveillance.

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The power of GIS should not be underestimated,
but at the same time GIS should not be
overpromoted or blindly attacked. GIS provides a
tool to use on geographical information. What
they are used for and how to make best use of
them depends on the attitudes and mindsets of
their users and what they want to do with them.
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Discussion

• GIS as the escalator that geography can ride to
  finally occupy its legitimate position as a
  significant member of the quantitative and
  empirical sciences (Sheppard 1995, p. 5)

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Discussion

• Does GIS contribute to a growing split between
  techies and intellectuals in contemporary
  geography?
• (Sheppard 1995, p. 5)