Who Contrives the “Real” in GIS? Geographic Information, Planning and Critical Theory

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Abstract
We are troubled by the way that GIS researchers currently define and constitute their work within the planning process. Definitions which place people solely within the confines of a GIS and establish planning as a form of rational strategic production miss the important social, cultural, and political contexts of technology and management. If we begin, however, with the alternative premise that GIS and planning are social constructions then we are better placed to understand their role in societal processes. Clearly, certain communicative and authoritative conventions underwrite the roles of GIS practitioners as each player assumes the position of “expert” in relation to the people whom they intend to serve. Yet it is not clear how the communication and power structures that develop between the academic, the practitioner, and the clients served affect those whose everyday lives are impacted by GIS research and implementation. This paper suggests ways in which all actors involved in the production and consumption of GIS could have some ownership in the creation of knowledge. As such, it encompasses a post-positivist ethic which merges the academic and professional world with the world of everyday experience.

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