Very astute comments. Thanks.
"Tim Waters (chippy)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/13/2008 08:50 AM Please respond to [email protected] To [email protected] cc Subject Re: [Geowanking] was: novice vs experts These recent discussions have increasingly reminded me of the Introduction by Pickles in "Ground Truth: The Social Implications of Geographic Information Systems", published way way back in 1995. On two scales, those of experts and novices and those in power and those without. The main message from Ground Truth is that GIS is power. The tools are mainly used by those in power, and helps them keep their power and privilege, and widens the social gap. The traditional response to this is Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) - where the same tools are used to help those to make decisions without such privileges and power. To me, PPGIS still exists within the same world of GIS that Pickles describes - the tools and methods are the same - they are consciously used in a different way, however. Neogeography stands for a decentralising or democratising of power, the creation of new tools, new methodologies, and ecosystems. It could be said that within "the world of geo" those in power and privilege are the academics in the ivory towers, and the GIS experts with their arcane knowledge. It's easy to see there's vested interests at work. Those without power is everyone else. VGI is seen as a commodity, an output. A bigger example are the countries were GPS ownership or map-making is illegal (e.g Egypt)[2] Free software, open data & neogeography reduces somewhat the social gap between those with the power and those without. Although of course it's limited to the broader "digital divide" and access to computing & internet resources, which is being focused on in other areas. It's by no means perfect (it needs quite high-tech know how to go around and map for openstreetmap for example) but its on the right path. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Implications-Geographic-Information/dp/0898622956 [2] http://www.gisdevelopment.net/news/viewn.asp?id=GIS:N_mtgnzhxuse _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
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