Rest of the story here

There is no doubt however that this is a result of vast political posturing on the part on the Government of British Columbia to smooth over relations with the Haida nation who are against offshore development (2) of the immense oil reserves located nearby Haida Gwaii.  Haida chief Guujaaw called the plans of oil transport company Enbridge who want to ship oil by pipeline to Kitimat from Alberta where it would be shipped off to distant locations, “ludicrous” and “unbelievable” and that “the project would put the entire Haida way of life at risk for nothing more than the chance for investors and company officials to make money” (3).

1:  Queen Charlotte Islands renamed Haida Gwaii in historic deal

2: Hands off oil, Haida Nation says

3: Haida Nation Says No Way to Oil Tanker Traffic

This movement has been typified by web-based applications such as Google Maps, Google Earth, and Open Street Map.  All of these sites/sights are examples of what is now called web 2.0, which is characterized by the participatory creation of databases of information by web users.  Where the first incarnation of the web was strictly a one way affair where users moved from page to page and could not interact with the information that was presented other than read it, now with web 2.0 users are active creators and authors of information.

In the realm of Google Maps/Earth, Open Street Map and Wikimapia, among others, this information is geographic in nature, while places and events, and many other forms of information, are now georeferenced.

In this new world of participatory mapping enabled by web 2.0 users are the sensors themselves, and the information is locally sensed rather than remote sensed.  It must be stated though, like with any mapping activity, user created mapping is not objective, but subjective to the user’s position within the physical world and material society.

Examples of “Participant Populations” (218) given by Goodchild interestingly enough includes soldiers, and farmers.  He states that these individuals are potential sources of firsthand information and “data that is in many cases much more detailed and current than that available from central…agencies” (218).

He also claims, however, that these “developments contribute to a growing reversal of the traditional top-down approach to the creation and dissemination of geographic information” (218).  This is a problematic assumption though on the part of Goodchild that information coming from soldiers and farmers represent a shift to a bottom up kind of information gathering.

Soldiers represent the violent, repressive, and coercive authority of the state, and therefore, any information they would gather and disseminate will be in the state’s own interest.  Furthermore, the geospatial tools, utilized in precision farming, are owned by the capitalist class.  These tools are used on large farms owned by agribusinesses who farm on land that was gained through the structural, or in many cases the actual, violence of colonialism.  Is that what bottom up means?

Nonetheless, the growing trend of VGI, in many instances has removed map making from the hands of the ‘experts’ and placed it into the hands of regular citizens.  This is an empowering and democratic act, however, only for those that are able to participate by owning the proper equipment, and being connected (literally).

Goodchild, M. F. (2007). Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography. Geojournal, (69), 211-221.

Zook and Graham in their 2007 article, Mapping Digiplace: geocoded Internet data and the representation of place, discuss how “GoogleMaps shades the perceptions of the places that it maps” (p. 467).  The authors argue, “geography and place remain relevant in the information age, but the way in which they are used and the manner in which they are relevant has changed…” (p. 468).  The relevance has changed because cyberspace has combined with space becoming intricately linked in a constitutive process that is both mutual and dynamic (Zook & Graham, 2007).  It is mutual in the fact that digiplace defines place, while place defines digiplace.  It is dynamic in the fact that information and knowledge are fluid, constantly updated and (re)created.

However, like with traditional forms of geography and place keeping, neogeography and the creation of digiplace is not an objective process.  Digiplace relies on ‘code’, created by humans to give precedence over certain types of information over others.  The places that appear in a GoogleMaps search do not magically appear of their own volition.  They manifest thanks to code, and as Zook and Graham argue, “[a]t issue is the power of code to set rules for behavior” (p. 471).  GoogleMaps is able to create a representation of place based on code and algorithm, in much the same way that geodemographics are able to create profiles of neighbourhoods (Zook & Graham, 2007).

The underlying code of GoogleMaps represent values that are socially constructed and exemplify a host of cultural, political and economic responsibilities (Zook & Graham, 2007).  More than only an web-based mapping platform, it produces virtual and interactive spaces that are subjective, and mediates how people conceive of and associate their ideas of place.

Zook, M. A., & Graham, M. (2007). Mapping Digiplace: geocoded Internet data and the representation of place. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 34, 466-482.

The ways in which ‘indigenous mapping’ are used vary in outcome, but all strive for empowerment.  The main goal of indigenous mapping is to strengthen indigenous claims to traditional resources and lands (Chapin et al.)  There are also many secondary goals, which “include strengthening
indigenous political organization, economic planning and natural resource management, and the documentation of history and culture to salvage and reinforce cultural identity for use in schools and throughout the broader public” (Chapin et al., 620).

However, even with all these altruistic goals of indigenous mapping considered, the implications must also be examined.  The science of cartography has predominantly been a tool of the elite.  As Chapin et al. put it, “[c]artography has rightly been dubbed “the science of princes,” used by governments and elites to stake claim to valuable land and resources, a science of which the indigenous peoples have been the most common victims” (622).

It seems now that the western world has forgotten, or rather chooses to ignore the fact that mapping has always been a tool of cultural assimilation.  Even now, as many indigenous groups, particularly in the US and Canada, are given cartographic tools such as GIS, it seems they are given the tools to further their own assimilation.  I am reminded it seems of old pictures of First Nations individuals wearing western fashions.  These pictures served to remove the culture from these people and erase the ‘savage’ from them.

As assimilation was attempted through fashion, so is it through technology; however, technology is a much stronger tool than fashion.

GIS is a technology of assimilation for the following reason; the technology implants western and hegemonic notions of landscape onto epistemologies that allow for diverse and fluid views of the world (Rundstrom).  Rundstrom posits that GIS is “potentially toxic to human diversity, notably the diversity of systems for knowing about the world” (45).

Rundstrom’s most powerful example with which he shows the differences between indigenous and western ways of thinking about the land comes from a Hopi elder.  In the example, the elder talks about the sacredness of water, and how it is essential for life; but the mountains far away where the water and stream originate are also sacred, for they give the water birth.

These are notions that I think we (in the western world) are just beginning to grasp, however in a scientific and rationalized epistemological framework.  We now talk about ‘watersheds’ and ‘watershed protection’ because we are finally realizing the importance of watersheds to water quality downstream.  We are beginning to recognize the connectivity of landscapes that are often separated by great distance.

This makes me wonder about about a few questions, and particularly the future relevance of GIS in a world that must take these connections into account.  Is GIS a ‘humanizing’ technology, or a dehumanizing one?  Does GIS strengthen the western notion of dominance over the landscape rather than bring us closer to it?  Does it compartmentalize fluid landscapes into easily manipulated and exploitable static realms?  If GIS was born out of the western mindset that gave birth to slavery and  colonialism, and also spawned the current wave of mass extinctions and environmental destruction, how much relevance and credibility can GIS have in the present and the future?

There have been many examples in the past where technology run amok and unchecked have been responsible for the disappearance of once vast resources.  The first one that comes to my mind is the overfishing of Atlantic Cod on Canada’s east coast.  In this case, technological advances in the commercial fishing industry coupled with a lack of governmental oversight virtually exterminated a once thriving resource.  On the west coast of Canada, the Pacific salmon are on the verge of suffering the same fate.  Is it a good thing that technology can help us exploit resources, as well as people with more efficiency?  The word ‘efficiency’ conjures the notion of doing something responsibly; however, ‘efficiency’ also conotates ‘speed’.  Are we now exploiting our resources more responsibly, but doing so faster than ever?  In this case, ‘responsibility’ needs to be connected to ethics, and the wielding of any technology needs to be done in an ethical manner.  As the saying goes,  “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should”.

If it is obvious that we need to change our ways of thinking about the world we live in, what about the tools that came out of that thinking in the first place, and ‘helped’ us get to where we are today?  GIS was ‘born’ in the 1960s, at the same time that many other technologies and ‘advancements’ came to the fore that helped poison and pollute the world, greatly contributing to and no doubt expediting what we see today.  Perhaps, much like the poisons and chemicals created during that time, GIS is just as toxic as Rundstrom suggests it is.

Rundstrom, R. A. (1995). GIS, Indigenous Peoples, and Epistemological Diversity. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 22 (1), 45-57.

Chapin, M., Lamb, Z., & Threlkeld, B. (2005). Mapping Indigenous Lands. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 619-638.

GIS is not a tool that was meant for the masses, and as such can be said to be anti-democratic. However, there is a burgeoning movement towards ‘participatory GIS’ (PGIS), where the power of GIS is made available to marginalized groups and communities in attempts to legitimize (in the eyes of the western world) their knowledge, as well as their claims to land and resources   Abbot et al. discuss this movement in their paper entitled Participatory GIS: opportunity or oxymoron? (1998).

Abbot et al. argue that, [c]apturing local knowledge and combining it with more traditional spatial information, is therefore, a central objective” (pg. 33) of participatory GIS.  However, it is this conception of capturing local knowledge that can be seen as problematic.  Capturing local knowledge is effectively what PGIS does.  It can treat fluid and dynamic systems of traditional knowledge and representation as commodities and digital food for the machine.

Capturing this knowledge subsumes this knowledge by western thought and places it under the gaze of hegemonic authorities and the ‘techno-human’.  What state of affairs have we reached where the last of the traditional human modes of thought are placed into machines where that information is effectively dehumanized for the sake of efficiency and ‘emancipation’?  Do we truly emancipate people, or further marginalize them by placing their knowledge into a computer, where the immaterial and spiritual is transformed into the material and spiritless?

***note: I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with this all, but thought the issue raised some interesting questions.  I just pretty much went with my train of thought on this one.***

As an example for her discussion, Parker chronicles the development of the green mapping project in Portland, Oregon.  Through Parker’s discussion we can come to question the notion of ‘community’ and question just whose community is it?

Green mapping initiatives endeavor to map out businesses that are concerned with ethical, social, and environmental responsibility.  Green maps also locate institutions that are deemed culturally relevant or promote environmental sustainability.  Through the act of mapping certain locations, the community is created in the eyes of those who create it.

Typically, ‘sustainability’ and ‘environmental responsibility’ are issues and markets that are supported by those whose subject positions are aligned with the hegemonic elite.  Sustainability and environmental responsibility are luxuries that not everyone in society, or the community, can afford.  Furthermore, it has been shown that places like museums and art galleries are accessible to only those with a particular cultural capital.  So even though community maps are claimed to empower communities, just who in the community do they empower?  In the case of the Portland Green Map, it only served to reproduce elite notions of community.

We can see that the definition of community, like so much else in this world, is fluid and open to a myriad of interpretations.  Unfortunately, even under the guise of empowerment, it is often elite notions that are represented and reinforced on the landscape.  It is important for individuals who work on ‘community’ maps, to be utterly aware of the implications of the work and the maps they produce.

Maps are political documents that, as stated before, reflect the hegemonic view of landscape, while at the same time weld hegemonic meanings onto the landscape.  It is right to question a profession that at one time would label maps with such names as “Nigger Canyon” or “Squaw Teat” (Harley, 4).

It must be asked then, which veiled ignorances are reproduced on maps today and what will we see on our maps of today when we examine them fifty years from now?  Will we shake our heads with disbelief as we recognize the ideologies and representations that we inscribed onto the landscape? Maps can almost be seen as schematic diagrams that represent the collective consciousness of hegemonic society.

Proctor (1998) provides a detailed discussion regarding geography and ethics in general.  Proctor doesn’t quite debate the ethics of geography, like Harley, but provides examples of how ethics can be used to examine and question the world around us; particularly using, descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and meta-ethics.  Nonetheless, Procter does recognize the fact that geography is an exercise in the production of knowledge, and is therefore heavy with power and so any knowledge created must be done so with the ethic of that knowledge and its implications in mind.

Proctor states that place, space and nature are the ontological tools of geography.  These are the ways that as geographers, we make sense of reality.  By examining space and place,and the meanings that are infused in those places, particularly regarding race and gender, we can see the normative tendencies that are (re)produced by space and (re)enforced by individuals within that space or place.  We can therefore question the ethical values of society using space and place because they are the material manifestations of society’s values and subjectivities on the landscape.  Space and place are the backdrops to our acting out of society, and therefore, acts carried out within those spaces and places are inherently meaningful and their ethics can thus be questioned.

It is important to think of ethics while using geography to examine the spaces and places around us.  However, it is equally and maybe even more important to be aware of the ethics of the knowledge that is created and how it will be used.  Will it be used to further the normative tendencies of place and space, will it (re)enforce hegemonic notions and ideology onto the spaces we examine, or will it be used to question the ethics of the society that we live in?  In my opinion, geography must be a critical exercise that challenges people to question the normative habits that are manufactured by place and space and at the same time opens their hegemonic meanings and (re)presentations up to contestation and resistance.

Harley, J.B. (1990). Cartography, Ethics and Social Theory. Cartographica, 27 (2), 1-23.

Proctor, J. D. (1998). Ethics in Geography: Giving Moral Form to the Geographical Imagination. Area, 30 (1), 8-18.

Maps are so good at being political tools because of the fact that people are more than willing to accept maps are “truth” or “reality”.  As Monmonier argues, “naive citizens willingly accept as truth maps based on a biased and sometimes fraudulent selection of facts” (87).  To add to Monmonier’s argument, naive citizens are willing to accept maps as truth because they are produced by those with authority and power.  In this sense, maps are a visual discourse created by authorities in an attempt to perpetuate their hegemony.

Maps are powerful tools in maintaining the hegemony of the elite because they can be viewed by anyone without special training.  They are visual tools rather than literary, as in the past not everyone knew how to read.  The symbols used in propagandic maps such as circles and arrows are generally straightforward and self explanatory, even to the least educated of individuals.  It is because of their far reaching audience, and their acceptance as a document of “truth” that maps are powerful, and can also be dangerous.

For those adverse to statistics and numbers in general, the topics of “cut-points” and “bivariate correlation” and how they can be dangerously manipulated on maps are enough to make your eyes glaze over.  Nonetheless, the article is most likely important for those with a need to represent quantitavie data visually in the form of a map.

The piece provides many examples of the “perils and limitations ” (221) that mapmakers can encounter as they venture to represent the “truth” of their data.  Monmonier provides a final warning that maps used as “analytical tools  are also rhetorical instruments fully capable of “lying ” in the hands of malevolent, naive, or sloppily expedient authors” (221).

Monmonier, M. (2005). Lying With Maps. Statistical Science, 20, (3), 215-222.