Download GIS and Society: A Critical Assessment

GIS and Society:
A Critical Assessment
Critiques in the academic literature:
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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/po
sition.html
Initiative 19: GIS and Society: The Social Implications of How
People, Space, and Environment are Represented in GIS (began
February 1996).
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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?
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How can the knowledge, needs, desires, and hopes of marginalized social groups be
adequately represented in GIS-based decision-making processes?
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What possibilities and limitations are associated with using GIS as a participatory tool for
more democratic resolution of social and environmental conflicts?
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What ethical and regulatory issues are raised in the context of GIS and Society research and
debate?
GIS as a tool?
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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 problemsolving to actually influencing the goals
themselves, sometimes in dramatic
ways (development of trade, cataloging
of resources, definition of property
ownership).
GIS is not just a tool for processing
geographical information.
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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.
Much of the lead in GIS technology has been
taken in North America and Great Britain.
Thus it reflects:
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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.
GIS is based on Boolean or mathematical logic:
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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).
Does GIS place limits on ways of representing
space?
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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.
Problems with pattern analysis:
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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.
GIS reinforces a tendency to rely on secondary
data sources for empirical analyses.
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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…
Does GIS facilitate equal access to geographical
information for all social classes?
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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.
Socio-economic applications in GIS
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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.
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.
Data are usually treated unproblematically,
except for technical concerns about errors.
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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 wouldn’t be a problem if all states were benign,
but they aren’t.
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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.
Information gathering as a commercial activity,
producing a product for sale
(eg weather information)
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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.
Surveillance capabilities of GIS
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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).
Example: Montes Azules
Biosphere Reserve
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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.
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.
Discussion…
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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)
Discussion
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Does GIS contribute to ”a growing split
between ’techies’ and ’intellectuals’ in
contemporary geography”?
(Sheppard 1995, p. 5)