1. Readings
Schuurman ch. 1, “Geography Matters”
Introducing the Identities of GIS
The Success of GIS: is it now what Geography is? Ubiquitous technology & computing (example)
- technological advances, widespread adoption (research, business, gov, personal)
- people may not have heard of GIS but they use it and are affected by it
- GoogleMaps or Yahoo Maps or MapQuest are all GIS
- municipal, utilities management: Delware County Ohio: DALIS Project
- business and marketing: PRIZM data: you are where you live
“This book is designed to inform the reader about precisely how GIS affects them as well as myriad social processes” (1)
- a more human & social approach to technology, intellectual rather than only technological
The problem of GIS and geography: love/hate
- GIS as one way of understanding “geography” – but dominating at the moment
- quantitative vs. qualitative methods
- epistemology: The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity. How we know.
Identity of GIS: what is it?
Delware County Ohio: DALIS Project: a tool for storing complex data; practical problem solving
- where
Geography 222 “PsychoGeography” maps / Mental Maps
- how to collect qualitative & strange data and map it
- what is most important when locating a recreational trail?
- logic of quantitative methods for optimizing, or qualitative data used to anticipate how people will react (and why)? Epistemological issues!
- Delaware Trails research paper (PDF)
Where Does GIS Come From?
- 1960s era technology and epistemology
McHarg and the GIS “overlay” method: locating a road: done manually
- encode in a computer: technology and a particular way of knowing
- what is not taken into account in this approach
- spatial analysis: a means of extracting information (knowledge) from data
- let a computer do what McHarg did
- maps allow us to see raw data, or interact with data as we are analyzing it, or show the results of what we did
- 1950s-60s: development of computational analysis and spatial analysis tools
- wed technology to methods of knowing
- Harvard Graphics Lab: research spurred development of GIS software (and ESRI)
The Messy Business of Digging for Roots: GIS’s Intellectual Antecedents
Examples of the Precursors of GIS: technology is easy, epistemology not
- ex) J.K. Wright: “The Terminology of Certain Map Symbols” (1944): point, line, area: 1930s for map symbolization; basis of “vector data”
- ex) certain kinds of data easier to collect and analyze and map, they seem more intuitive maybe because they are what we are used to doing.
- ex) Historians reluctance to use GIS: Historical GIS
What does GIS stand for?
- definitions describe technology (systems; application): GIS(systems) = GIS
- hard/software for data input, analysis, output
- “black box:” assume the methods in the software are legitimate, don’t question
- definitions describing methods and process (science; theory): GIS(cience) = GISci
- origin of the methods, critique of the methods, new methods
- conceptual models of geographic space, sphericity of the real world vs. flat world of GIS,
- uncertainty and error, analytical methodologies, cognitive aspects.
- also Participatory GIS, Critical Cartography & GIS: myriad of human/social issues
- justifying and shaping an intellectual/academic role in GIS
- myriad of issues of intellectual importance (that one may not think about at all if only approaching GIS as black box technology).
- epistemology (how we know) and ontology (what the world must be like in order to be known): the debate on evolution/science vs creationism/intelligent design
- does geography (and its concepts/theories) drive GIS, or does GIS drive geography? Debates in the field.
Data in, Information Out: Common Ground between GISys and GISci
GISys and GISci hard to differentiate in practice
- ex) data classification: the categories we put things into
- ex) house: what defines what a house is? Is an apartment a house? A dorm? A condo? A long-term residential hotel? The kind of issue both Sys and Sci people have to deal with
- ex) boundaries: complexity in drawing: neighborhood boundaries have to be drawn if you are using GIS, but where to draw them? How do you define a neighborhood (which is a classification of place)
- visualization: using intuition and knowledge to see patterns and connections:
different epistemological approach – visual, not analytical. - Dr Snow example: Broad St. pump and cholera p. 15
Geography Matters
- a quadzillion GIS applications… and jobs
2. Introductions & Interesting GIS application (w/examples)
- Major, year, experience with mapping & GIS, hobbies, future goals, favorite goat breeds, etc.
3. Next Time
- see course schedule
- after class: blog clean-up and questions
