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 decision-making8

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 contradiction 9 because of its high cost, level of expertise and its failings as an AT10 it is founded on the concept of absolute space11 and an instrumentalist mode of

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 11 Also known as Cartesian or Newtonian space

reasoning12 of the perceived positivism and hegemonic power relations embedded within GIS of its claimed value-neutral 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 pre-eminence 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 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 post-structural object-orientated approach and some features of IT theory
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

In order to improve community-integration 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 community-integrated GIS is conflictual as hegemonic interpretations of landscapes are challenged recognize that the GIS-empowerment-marginalization nexus can only be understood within the political context of spatial decision-making 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 low-cost software for GIS24 develop software that takes advantage of the existing software infrastructure in the developing world establish a strong local information system where peoples participation, IK and GIS function in mutually complementary ways In order to adopt a post-structuralist object-orientated and IT approach25 to IK, GIS exponents need to: recognize that objects of study are discursively constructed and the need to dissolve the authority of subject/object dualism. gain emancipation from Cartesian space, past technology, past disciplinary affiliations and methodology26 embrace post-structuralist views of objects, social theory and embeddedness engage more rigorously with geographical method, epistemology and ontology,

24 such as IDRISI and MAP 25 Yapa 1998 Sarup 1988 26 Pickes 1991, Yapa 1998

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 web-like, non-hierarchical, multilinear, hypertextual, decentered and contextual29

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. Object-orientated 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 timespace. In the relative view of time-space, both space and time are positional qualities that are attached to each object. The absolute view focuses on space-time 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