Learning from critiques of GIS for assessing the geoweb and indigenous knowledges
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Learning from critiques of GIS for assessing the geoweb and indigenous knowledges Genevie`ve Reid
. Rene´e E. Sieber
Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Advances in geospatial technologies over recent years have marked dramatic changes in traditional cartographic practices and conventional geographic information systems (GIS). Scholars in GIScience and digital geographies commonly argue that, compared to GIS, the geospatial web (geoweb) offers improved opportunities for Indigenous communities to make their own maps, contribute their own place-based content, and tell their own stories. Critical GIS has informed us about the potential issues with the use of spatial technologies in Indigenous contexts, which we synthesize into three themes: 1. compartmentalizing and distilling Indigenous knowledges, 2. undermining Indigenous ways of knowing and of transferring knowledges, and 3. exploiting and assimilating Indigenous knowledges. These three criteria are used to assess what Indigenous communities should examine when engaging with the geoweb and Indigenous knowledges. Our analysis focuses on G. Reid (&) Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33199, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. E. Sieber Department of Geography, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, QC H3A 0B9, Canada R. E. Sieber School of Environment, McGill University, 3534 University St, Montreal, QC H3A 2A7, Canada
issues of data ownership, access, sharing, and appropriation. We point to ways in which Indigenous peoples should carefully assess various components of the geoweb to avoid the misrepresentation, distortion, assimilation, exclusion, and exploitation of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous ways of transmitting knowledge. We conclude with potential solutions for development of the geoweb. Keywords Critical GIS GIScience Indigenous geographies Indigenous data sovereignty Geospatial web
Introduction Geographic information systems (GIS’s) have faced significant social critiques. The history of progress and the scientific milestones of critical GIS has widely been documented (e.g., Crampton and Wilson 2015; Goodchild 2015; Schuurman 2000). One of the fundamental theoretical early contributions are from critical cartography, with its emphasis on representation and power (Harley 1988). The Friday Harbor meeting in 1993 reified the problems of cartography and added new ones for the emerging field of critical GIScience. Early work in the 1990 continued to have an influence in the field of critical GIScience over time (Crampton and Wilson 2015; Goodchild 2015;
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Thatcher et al. 2016a). One of the important issues developed over the years include the critique of Warren (2004) and others who contend that GIS furthers a positivist way of knowing the world (see Schuurman 2000). Based on Descartes’s mathematical system of coordinates and geometries of points, lines, and polygons (Pickles 2004), GIS is viewed as re
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