Teaching GIS as a Socially Constructed Technology

The political economy of existing GISystems must be understood at three levels: the individual educator, the GIS user, and the military-industrial complex.We must ask ourselves what kinds of GIS specialists and cartographers we are producing for what kinds of jobs.We must not simply write a perpetual near-present; it is necessary to look beyond what data are simply easily accessible in our research.Over the past several decades, GISystems and GIScience have become established and valorized within the field of geography and geographic education. With the recent explosion in daily use of devices producing spatial data, such as smartphones, has come a renewed call to broaden the purview of Critical GIS beyond the desktop and towards these new systems of capitalist accumulation. In this viewpoint, we argue that any re-examination of the role of Critical GIS must also consider the political economy of geography and geographic education in which GISystems are used for research and taught. We explicate three registers at which GISystems function within geography: that of the individual educator, that of the GIS user, and that of the military-industrial complex in which GISystems were and are developed.

Section: A Look Inwards a Path Forwards?mentioning

confidence: 80%

The poverty of GIS theory: Continuing the debates around the political economy of GISystems

Thatcher

Imaoka²

2018

“…Research projects integrating multiple opensource software and data providers inevitably encounter challenges of error, uncertainty, and subjectivity in GIS (Schweik et al 2009). Every error presents opportunities to discover the social construction of GIS (Warren 1995) as its network of technologies, developers, and users is disrupted and reconfigured (Harvey 2001;Comber et al 2003;Latour 2005). Many disruptions are caused by semantic shifts understood by researching the social and technical context of spatial data and algorithms (Schuurman 2008).…”

Section: Teaching Critical Open Gismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Teaching ethics and critique is more effective with applied experience (DiBiase et al 2012; Harvey 2014). Teaching GIS techniques as socially constructed (Warren 1995) is an effective pedagogy, as students care about GIS as their subject (Schuurman and Pratt 2002) through their practicums and research projects. Elwood (2009) and Sinha et al (2017) teach GIS as a participatory research method, simultaneously deepening students’ GIS fundamentals and understanding of GIS as a social process.…”

Section: Teaching Critical Open Gismentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching critical open GIS

Holler

2019

Teaching critical open GIS has the potential to disrupt common GIS representations and bridge the divide between GIS and non-GIS human geography curricula. • Open-source GIS creates opportunities for critical GIS to effectively and affectively engage with GIS technology at the level of code. Higher-education geographic information system (GIS) curricula largely marginalize and separate instruction of critical GIS and open GIS, paralleling a divide between GIS and non-GIS in geography. GIS is typically represented as a singular, infallibly objective, and universally applicable technology. GIS generally dismisses the critiques from human geography, while critical human geography dismisses GIS for its association with positivism and unethical applications. Teaching critical open GIS may bridge this divide, creating a transformative pedagogical space for human geography to affectively and effectively engage with open GIS technology at the level of code. Critical open GIS students practice and critique GIS as conflicted insiders, bridging the divide between GIS and non-GIS in their geography education. Reviews of GIS curricula find support for teaching critical and open GIS, but reviews of texts and syllabi confirm their marginalization and separation. A new critical open GIS course is introduced, using GIS in development and political ecology as integrative frameworks.

“…This approach draws on existing pedagogy that emphasizes the value of project‐based, experiential, and service‐learning and collaboration skills in deepening student's conceptual, critical, and technical knowledge of GIS (see Warren 1995; Lloyd 2001; Elwood 2009; Pacheco and Velez 2009; Sinha et al 2017; Elwood and Wilson 2017). While ambitious and with many moving parts, the benefit is that students are never de‐linked from the social context in which their learning, use, and knowledge of GIS is embedded.…”

Section: Teaching Gis Criticallymentioning

confidence: 99%

A hard binary to shake: The limitations and possibilities of teaching GIS critically

Anderson

Radil

2019

• Many traditional GIS courses do little to teach GIS critically and critical GIS courses are relatively rare. • Several scholars are interviewed to identify key barriers to teaching GIS critically. • Pedagogic strategies are presented to navigate and circumvent these barriers. This paper builds upon studies employing a syllabi-based methodology that suggest a tendency for critical geographic information science (GIS) courses to emphasize reading/discussion about GIS without actually doing GIS, and for traditional GIS instruction courses to emphasize the technical capacities of GIS software without incorporating critical theory in substantive ways. However, through ethnographic evidence we reveal that there is likely more innovative theory-practice transcending pedagogies being utilized than would necessarily show up in such a syllabi-based methodology. There are also very real and differentially manifest pragmatic, departmental, and institutional barriers in place to effectively incorporating critical social theory into courses that actually do GIS. We first catalogue these barriers as a means of ascertaining what can (and cannot) be done to overcome them through GIS pedagogic innovation. We then outline the (often-veiled) pedagogic strategies deployed by critical GIS scholars today to navigate and circumvent these barriers.