Sean, I can't agree with you more. Even though my PhD dissertation research focuses exclusively on aspects of managing geographic information in ways that haven't really had direct application prior to the advent of virtual globes, my advisor looks down on WorldWind and Google Earth. She's also completely clueless about the state of the art in terms of web-enabled GIS.
I think the real problem is that Geography is traditionally an Arts & Sciences discipline that's a little more closely situated to Sociology than Geology in Academia. Geography, as a discipline is not accepting of the fast pace of change of modern technology. For instance, my department still expects a dissertation that is essentially a 300+ page book. Most other sciences accept a dissertation that's a compilation of three peer-reviewed journal articles. And in GIScience, I find most of my research readings come not from journals but from conference papers. But don't entirely discount the academic geographers. While it seems that they all run from math and positivism, it's because they went through what's known as "The Quantitative Revolution" in the 60s and 70s and exhausted much of what can be shown through mathematical and statistical models. Look at the origins of things like multidimensional statistical analyses and spatial autocorrelation and you'll see some old Geographers and Sociologists staring back at you. The answer that some might give you about solving problems with Google Earth is: Been there, done that, got the tenure. Now we're working on something a little more challenging. In many ways, the prevelence of post modernism in mainstream geography is both a reaction to the exhaustion of logical positivism as a mode of inquiriy and an outgrowth of deconstruction of the role geography has played in the history of mankind (it's not very pretty, so I'm not going to go into details). So now, while the logical positivists in geography are dealing with problems like modeling the melting ice sheet in Greenland, the post modernists are dealing with problems of displaced people due to sea level rise. The role that the positivists are playing can be easily picked up by other disciplines but the problems that the post modernists are approaching are uniquely geographical in nature. -Eric On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 4:10 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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 > -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
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