GIS Critique John Studley Nov 2004
It has been suggested, however that a dichotomy exists whereby GIS can act to both empower and marginalise communities simultaneously and that it is contradictory when used for grassroots or community forms of development 1 In spite of concerns raised by some social theorists2 about the negative impacts of GIS on society, others see liberating elements in indigenous societies.
Representatives of indigenous and local communities are using GIS as a means of advocacy, inclusion, participation and recognition3 through:
incorporating local knowledge into participatory land reform4
its use in collaborative forest management5
assisting communities to redefine themselves and territories6
its use in codifying knowledge about land rights and resources7
raising the profile of IK so it is used in decisionmaking8
To these GIS exponents the technology provides a critical complement to efforts being made to empower group struggles to impact politics and effect a meaningful change in their lives.On the other hand the involvement of local community groups with a complex technology such as GIS has been viewed with apprehension and concern and a contradiction9 because
of its high cost, level of expertise and its failings as an AT10
1 Yapa 1991, Harris et al 1995, Weiner et al 1995, Rundstrum 1995 2 Harris and Weiner 1996, 1998 3 Jarvis and Stearman 1995, Nietschmann 1995 4 Harris et al 1995 5 Kyem 1997 6 Beltgens 1995 7 Forbes 1995 8 Bird 1995 Fisher 1994 9 Taylor 1991, Yapa 1991 10 Yapa 1991
it is founded on the concept of absolute space11 and an instrumentalist mode of reasoning12
of the perceived positivism and hegemonic power relations embedded within GIS
of its claimed valueneutral and objective nature13
of the privileging and inequalities of data and facts14
of undemocratic and differential access to data and technology15
of its surveillant capabilities in terms of knowledge engineering and control16
of the commodification and bureaucratization of data17
of the intrusive role of geodemographics18
of structural knowledge distortion19
of concerns over the ethical and responsible use of GIS20
of the limitations of digital representations of the world/map as a metaphor
of the failures of GIS epistemologies to represent multiples realities of space
of the cultural bias of the technology21
of its failure to represent alternative forms of knowledge and qualitative data
of the preeminence of boolean logic in GIS applications22
of the danger that IK will be transformed by the logic of the technology which will further disenfranchise indigenous people
of rhetorical claims that GIS will foster ‘grassroots’ participation and ‘empowerment’ when in reality it may serve to legitimize policies and projects that will have the opposite effect23
11 Also known as Cartesian or Newtonian space 12 Peuquet 1994, Yapa 1998 13 Openshaw 1991, 1992 14 Goodchild 1991 15 Pickles 1991 16 Pickles 1991 17 Crampton 1995 18 Curry 1994 19 Taylor 1991 20 Wright et al 1997 21 Rundstrum 1995 22 Sheppard 1995 23 Harris and Weiner nd
Some have suggested a number of approaches to reduce the negative and contradictory nature of GIS including: Improved Community integration, more appropriate software technologies, and the inclusion of a poststructural objectorientated approach and some features of IT theory In order to improve communityintegration GIS must
recognize expert and indigenous understandings of local landscape
facilitate socially appropriate land use
recognize the contradictory condition of the technology and the political economy of data, hardware and expertise access
realistically attempt to conceptualise the struggles and aspiration of indigenous communities
recognize that communities are socially differentiated
recognize that communityintegrated GIS is conflictual as hegemonic interpretations of landscapes are challenged
recognize that the GISempowermentmarginalization nexus can only be understood within the political context of spatial decisionmaking in a particular place
In order to make the technology more appropriate and available there is a need to
relax the proprietary rights over existing GIS software
develop public domain GIS
develop lowcost software for GIS24
develop software that takes advantage of the existing software infrastructure in the developing world
establish a strong local information system where people’s participation, IK and GIS function in mutually complementary ways
In order to adopt a poststructuralist objectorientated and IT approach25 to IK, GIS exponents need to:
recognize that objects of study are ‘discursively constructed’ and the need to dissolve
24 such as IDRISI and MAP 25 Yapa 1998 Sarup 1988
the authority of subject/object dualism.
gain emancipation from Cartesian space, past technology, past disciplinary affiliations and methodology26
embrace poststructuralist views of objects, social theory and ‘embeddedness’
engage more rigorously with geographical method, epistemology and ontology, social theories of mapping and the substantive content and contexts of spatial objects
formulate a logic of relational space27 and a logic of process28
examine IK in greater substantive detail on the basis of an IT conceptual system that is weblike, nonhierarchical, multilinear, hypertextual, decentered and contextual29
26 Pickes 1991, Yapa 1998 27 GIS is founded on a logic of Cartesian space, but for it to produce useful indigenous knowledge we need to formulate a logic of relational space. Objectorientated GIS appears promising in this respect (See Peuquet 1994). It is based on context dependency where the distance between two points may have different metrics for different users. Representations of time and space can be absolute or relative. In the absolute view space is composed of points, time is composed of instants and both exist independent of the objects that occupy time space. In the relative view of timespace, both space and time are ‘positional qualities’ that are attached to each object. The absolute view focuses on spacetime as the subject matter, in contrast, the relative view focuses on objects with space and time measured as relationships between these objects (Yapa 1998) 28 Peuquet 1994 29 Landow 1992 Yapa 1998