MasterMaps

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | New uses of GIS There have been a growing number of attempts to combine critical human geography with GIS methods and techniques (O'Sullivan, 2006). Here are some successful examples where researchers informed by social theory have engaged with the technology, rather than to criticise from the outside. People Participating GIS (PPGIS) emerged out of the critic that GIS further privileged those in power and marginalised others. PPGIS pertains to use GIS to broaden public involvement in policymaking and to promote the goals of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), grassroot groups, and community-based organisations (Sieber, 2006). But it is important to be aware that PPGIS can introduce new set of power relations into a community (Crampton, 2003) Counter-mapping is a related concept to PPGIS, referring to efforts to contest and undermine power relations and asymmetries in relation to cartographic products (Harris and Hazen, 2006). The term was introdu...

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Military connections "The war against Iraq in 1990-91 was the first full-scale GIS war" . This is the opening line in a paper by Neil Smith (1992) in the Progress in Human Geography journal. Smith describes the military roots of GIS and how the techology is (mis)used in modern warfare. Technology does not cause war, but Smith argues that techniques are not easily separatable from their uses. GIS are making war more "doable". These connections were clearly visible in the air and land operations, Operation Desert Storm, of the first Gulf War. Digitised map data was provided by military and scientific agencies. 3D simulations were used to navigate through the desert, and "Geo-smart" bombs were equipped with a video camera so their way to the target could be screened by CNN. Smith calls this a "perverse extravaganza" as the war claimed an estimated 200 000 Iraqi lives. Smith is conserned how GIS, combined with mo...

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Geographical Information Systems (GIS) did not ease into the geography departments without friction, and it is has been said that "academic geographers often have a love/hate relationship with GIS" (Schuurman, 2004:2). In this blog series, I try to reveal this dichotomy by looking at the historical background and the arguments put forward. As the love/hate relationship weakened in the second half of the 90s, we see how co-operation between GIS scholars and their critics fostered a new GIS discourse. The series ends by looking at further possibilities of combining quantitative and qualitative methods with GIS. Geographical information systems (GIS) influence many aspects of the modern society. We leave locational, electronical tracks whenever we use a credit card, turn on our mobile phone or send an email. Car navigation systems are becoming state-of-the-art in new automobiles. Web mapping tools like Google Earth are bringing the ideas of GIS to...