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- Info
Ground truth: the social implications of geographic information systems
| Author: |
J. Pickles |
| Abstract: |
Ground Truth: The Social Implications of Geographic Information Systems is, first, a book about the transformation data handling and mapping capabilities that have emerged in the past two decades, and the impact they have had within the discipline of geography. Second, it is a book about the constellation of ideas, ideologies, and social practices that have emerged with the development of new forms of data handling and spatial representation. Third, it situates GIS as a tool and an approach to geographical information within wider transformations of capitalism in the late 20th century: as a tool to protect disciplinary power and access to funding; as a way of organizing more efficient systems of production; and as a reworking (and rewriting) of cultural codes – the creation of new visual imaginaries, new conceptions of earth, new modalities of commodity and consumer, and new visions of what constitutes market, territory, and empire. Our focus on GIS is thus also a reading (and a writing) of a broader history of the present, implicating issues of critical import to contemporary social transformation and the redefinition of what passes for democracy. The chapters approach these issues through analyses of technical change in specific contexts: in the discipline of geography, in the arena of production, in the use of advertising images, in the commodification of consumers, in the practice of way, and in the governance of territory. |
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