[Geowanking] Critical Theory

Tue Jul 1 15:10:54 PDT 2008

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" <ebwolf at gmail.com>
To: geowanking at lists.burri.to
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

-- 
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Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818
PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography

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