Sean wrote: "This may be true vis a vi Google Earth, but why do we focus almost exclusively on such angles instead of how we can educate a new mass of users on what good geography is?"
I had to chuckle when I read this. With the rise of GIS many surveyor's are wondering how we can teach GIS techs what good spatial data really is. :] Landon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 3:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory Apologies for driving the thread off course but happy to add to the new thread. The comment on critical theory replacing "good solid empirical research" was a bit of flame bait. It is a contraction in terms - you can't really replace one with the other, critical and/or post modern theory is by definition not empirical and vice versa (poking myself in the eye ;-). That aside, my lament is not that critical theory has no place or is not important, but that as a discipline (Geography) we have swung too far in the critical theory direction. At the NYC AAG 2001 the editor of the NY Times gave a great keynote where he basically admonished the discipline for not being relevant to society. The vast majority of the popular books associated with geography are not written by geographers - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (he took a Geography post at UCLA after writing the book but it was not his background) The New Economic Geography by Paul Krugman (an economist). He had a long list in the presentation, but his point was stop focusing so much on critical theory and start thinking about how you can be relevant to society. Now we see the same thing happening with the GeoWeb. Huge amounts of innovation that is massively popular with the public, and very few geographers involved. Instead the major contributions are post modern critiques of the innovation. It is especially disappointing because the collaborative and open nature of the GeoWeb has the potential to diminish so many of the problems critical theory points out in Geography. Yet instead of looking at the potential to solve problems we produce lyrical quips like, "Google Earth is routinely understood as a virtual globe composed of surveyed panoramas, sober rationalization, dystopic control, and transparent order rather than an uncertain orb spangled with vertiginous paranoia, frenzied navigation, jubilatory dissolution, and intoxicating giddiness." This may be true vis a vi Google Earth, but why do we focus almost exclusively on such angles instead of how we can educate a new mass of users on what good geography is? best, sean FortiusOne Inc, 2200 Wilson Blvd. suite 307 Arlington, VA 22201 cell - 202-321-3914 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Wolf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 4:03:13 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [Geowanking] Critical Theory > Too often post modern theory replaces good solid empirical research. Part of what defines Geography (or paleo-Geography in this forum) as a discipline has been it's ability to merge the human with the empirical. Issues of data ownership have been a front-line research area for GIS. It used to be focused on parcel data sets. The basic argument was: if public funds are used to pay for the data collection, it should be free for public use. Later it morphed into cost sharing programs used by local governments to fund aerial photography runs. The civic government wasn't able to afford the fly-over. By sharing costs with other interested parties, they were able to acquire better data. Who, then, owns the data? Since it was partly funded by the public, shouldn't everyone get it? Then what value was there for the interested parties to invest funds? But geographic information has a component that goes way beyond who owns what. It's much more fundamental and deals with the ontological nature of geographic information. Putting someting "on the map" establishes it's existence in significant ways. When you start messing with ontology, you better be open to critical (post modern) analysis. For instance, I work for the USGS. We are doing everything we can to expose more geospatial information for public use via open standards. However, the USGS holds some data that it won't expose. There are significant environmental concerns for exposing some data. There are significant security concerns for other data. And there are cultural concerns for not exposing other data. But how do we define these cultural concerns? It used to be well established based on "solid empirical research" that Native Americans deserved little rights to lands they inhabited for generations. The Enlightenment led to genocide of indigenous cultures. Now we understand that there are reasons beyond the empirical research to protect geographic information relating to these cultures that were once considered unimportant. Example: if you put an previously unmapped location containing significant Native American cultural artifacts on a publicly available map, these artifacts will likely be stolen or vandalized. The act of putting something on the map has significant social implications. If you value the rights of Native Americans to retain what little is left of their culture, you will leave these things off your map. -Eric Wolf Geographer, USGS Center of Excellence in GIScience -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. 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