In order to establish a viable research strategy for the linkages between GIS and society, it is important to accept three principles that are not clearly articulated in the call for participation in I19:
Research must of course focus its attention to be effective, but any project that identifies just one direction of influence blinds itself to the whole process that produces and reproduces GIS in its web of social interactions. Similarly, social theories must focus on specific components in this large web, but they risk losing sight of the whole context. These issues are difficult to address without understanding the last one concerning technological determinism.
On the question of the direction of influence, it is clear that few hold to the neutrality of GIS. The GIS proponent hopes that the new systems will influence social goals in some direct intentional way. The critics of GIS, at least the most outspoken, have taken on a horror of the changes produced. Yet both of these groups have very little evidence of the actual result of the change in mapping technology. There have been some rudimentary economic studies, but very few studies that address the social outcomes. For example, despite millions of dollars spent on tax records, there have been few studies of the equity of the results. While we can postulate that social forces hold the potential of GIS in check, there is little in the way of direct documentation. These two aspects would be the two directions of influence. In order to convince, I believe that we need well-designed research using historical reconstructions, case studies, ethnography, participant observation, and other social science methods.
In my estimation, the role of disciplines, professions and guilds provide an inescapable component of the social relationships that influence the ways that knowledge is structured and represented in a GIS. The nature of disciplinary and scientific development must be addressed to be able to understand how GISs end up as they are. Certainly no scientific enterprise is isolated from the overall social and cultural environment, but each discipline develops its boundaries and its way of viewing the world. This division has had an impact on the development of GIS inside North America and Europe, the hearth of current technology. Simply positing a society with the 'disadvantaged' versus some unitary 'state' oversimplifies the circumstances so far as to exclude the majority of social interactions involved in a GIS.
The practice of many guilds and disciplines (including surveyors, highway engineers, soils scientists, foresters, property appraisers, planners, petroleum geologists, ecologists and more) involves representing the Earth's surface. These groups are trained in remarkably different ways. Some are trained strictly on the job - embedded in a particular context, while others require long theoretical and scientific training. These shared experiences of training create the shared meanings of quite identifiable subcultures. These groups are often quite isolated from each other, socially and culturally. You only have to attend the Annual Convention of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping to see how different the cultures of surveying and cartography can be. And, the coming of GIS has required these different subcultures to mix in new ways. The old structures of authority have been broken and new structures are emerging. It is very important to start this research before the older ways of thinking have become totally swept away.
Research on society and GIS must also examine the contingency of GIS activity, particularly the role of individual agency within the structure of relationships imposed by history, society and culture. I think that such research must focus directly on the practice of GIS inside complex organizations. The organizing theory must deal with multi-disciplinary ways of knowing, as implemented in competing GIS representations. The reproduction of these views of society should become a subject of research, not simply assumed using a black box model of technology.
As one example, my recent research on the social practice of GIS has drawn closer to the literature on the sociology of science. The emergence of a 'bandwagon' in science requires a bit more than the simple 'paradigm' model of Kuhn. Multiple social realities interact in this process, which I connect to key elements in the development of GIS. I find Fujimura's constructs of 'standardized packages' and 'boundary objects' (see chapter in the 1992 book titled Science as Social Practice) particularly helpful. I have chosen to illustrate my research using a case study of the siting studies performed in 16 states for low level radioactive waste storage. While one element of this process does deal with the disadvantaged elements of society, that issue is far from the center of attention. The main divisions fall across disciplinary boundaries within science and the institutions involved in these projects. Though at an early stage, I am confident that these low-level waste projects will illustrate how the practice of GIS is socially contingent. By adopting a focus on sixteen project to implement the same federal regulation, I am trying to employ some experimental design techniques to explore the local contingencies within a framework that limits the diversity to just certain elements. This kind of attention to experimental design will be crucial to avoid fooling ourselves. I think my LLRW study addresses the basic intent of the initiative more directly than an attempt to go make a single attempt to design a GIS for the disadvantaged in some corner of the agrarian third world. I am quite hesitant to engage in more research in the mode of 'demonstration project'.
Research on the social aspects of GIS cannot avoid the 'technical' details of a GIS implementation. I expect to find the clearest traces of different disciplines in the specific tools in which they are trained. The engineer designs databases around positional accuracy, just as the accountant seeks the audit trail. These are their heritage and their way of organizing the world. In the case of LLRW, there are nuclear engineers trained in the particular methods used to locate nuclear power plants in the early era of environmental impact statements. Their belief in a rational model for decision making traces back to the operations research heritage of the Manhattan Project. Their heritage crossed paths with the movement for environmental planning, the background of McHarg whose simple approach to map overlay helped create the conceptual framework for GIS. These heritages have been passed on through training and through social authority structures. Eventually, the details of these subcultures come to influence the larger culture. Of course, none of these connections are deterministic. Each subculture absorbs concepts from their surroundings and becomes fundamentally changed. The individuals in these groups also live in other roles, thus mixing the connections.
I suggest that this initiative be given the simpler title of 'GIS as Social Practice'. It should focus on the tension between society and technology, giving equal weight to the historical forces and the possibilities for creating new arrangements.
Additional comment NOT sent to I19...
I have held an interest in the 'Geography of Geographic Information' for a
number of years. It has taken some time to articulate what this will involve
(the art is long...), but the variation in the practice of GIS seem to link to
some critical differences in the organization of societies. Geographic
information provides a useful indicator of some of the key questions in human
geography.
Lecture Notes on Geography of Geographic Information
Another position paper for I19 (NOT selected...)