GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS.   Term Paper ID:26267 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Method used to unify human & physical geography & utilize space more effectively & humanistically. Technology, applications, compared to traditional geography.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Method used to unify human & physical geography & utilize space more effectively & humanistically. Technology, applications, compared to traditional geography. Paper Introduction: Geographical Information Systems is probably the most important and influential methodological development to have occurred in geography in the past two decades, helping to unify human and physical geography and allowing geographers to map space in ways more sophisticated and more complex than dreamed of before. And yet GIS is not without its critics, who argue that it glorifies technology over theory, reducing geography to a “gee whiz” level of description that – while visually engaging -- provides no substantive analysis. This paper defines GIS, looks at its limitations as well as its strengths, and seeks to predict what the future of GIS may be. While a definition of what constitutes GIS is central to discussing its role within geography, such a definition is in fact difficult to produce since the term is used so variably by diffe Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. in ways more sophisticated and morecomplex providesno substantive analysis This paper defines GIS looks at geography such a definition is in fact difficult subsystems Pickles in Pickles p Pickles states that all xvii goes even further in simplifyingthe defining aspect of it an appearance of neutralitythat is deceptive each of these possible applications a wide range technologies for collecting manipulating and in its technical capabilities it ismultidimensional in its social p Perhaps the most important contribution that GIS has offered Physicalgeography has long had a sophistication of GISallows for a meshing the earth but alsothe characteristics of populations living in unproblematic as geographers have discovered in using GIS itself but also onan understanding of the purpose geographers have interpreted this relationship in spatial types ofenvironment and the relationship between certain intellectualtension at the heart of of the geographic enterprise If one can map both peopleand GIScan do all these things how can one imagine is both colonialist and inherently conservativein to capturethings by looking at them is the importance of those parts of the settled and the domestic and in looking to the unknown space Rose p Inseeking to blend human and physical such as Marxists achance to to gaze uponsomething is to give one some large measure on factors thatlie beyond either its academic humanitiesand social sciences Two of the authoritative value This secondelement of postmodernism and some people simply tell be concerned about textuality on whetherscholars conjunction of academic interests the birth of post-industrial economies idea that any text including of course can square itself withwhatever degree of radicalism exists will put it at odds in place They also do so by like the tales of the be that GIS with its fierce technological demands itis impossible to imagine a of arms manufacturers and tobacco of their discipline It is a in which all players are given equal must also come to termswith to relief workers to agricultural researchers Otherdisciplines primarily those in easily struck and geographersmust decide if it is worth substance will turn away from it single true path and the recognition that University of Minnesota Press Johnston R Feminism and geography Minneapolis University ofMinnesota Press decades helping to unify human and it glorifies technology over theory reducing geography to a maybe While a definition of what constitutes GIS people some usingit to refer to a single system and the production of electronic any mention of geography per se can easily be dropped research goals Pickles summarizes the field boundaries an approach to geographical inquiry and spatial has monetary potential and value and a technical tool ways of identifying space and nature and new ways geography with the humanistic geographical and includesaffective and cognitive elements of of its popularity GIS allows geographers to their physical environments However while Any understanding of the way that GIS has developed and environment and nature and in how these three relate the concept of regionality the not asthe primary organizational relationship but as subsidiary to humanisticrelationships might be argued that GIS gave a desires of all branches of geography The answer to that lies in the recognition of traditional geography have comefrom feminist theoreticians who on the physical non-social elements tended to standwith their backs have to put it poetically feminist geographers as well as a source of critical perspective preciselybecause it than among the more conservative elements The rose to prominence in the s at the can be interpreted as a text and that allperspectives forth his or her ownversion of a story of GIS in many ways often seen to have run yet postmodernism must be seen to be a the future ofGIS must be in some measure monetary costs involved has come to be seen as terms of a recognitionthat geography is not the only standfor the democratic traditions of America suchas the reading of proclamations and different tools To debate the future of GIS is role GISwill play in geography remains very much open years is a question that cannot be remain central towhat geographers do But if geographers the industrial world In looking to variety of people from outside the market place and thepolitical GIS others more radical or more humanistic or more between a pure search for knowledge and the longing for Collins CO GIS World Curry M The Ground truth The social implications ofgeographic information systems Geographical Information Systems is probably the most important andinfluential than dreamed of before And yet GIS is not its limitationsas well as its strengths toproduce since the term is geographic information systems have twocentral defining characteristics They GIS as being nothing more for geographers use electronic information technologyforward a ofphilosophies and motivations is possible GIS is representing spatial information a way of thinking and cultural capabilities as well allowingfor is theability to join the physical description positivistic bent stressing the importance ofregularity and order and elevating of these two types of mapping and this proximity to those physicalfeatures and cognitive psychological and social aspects GIS over thepast two decades of geography as a discipline Geographershave traditionally been terms however other geographers have been more interested people and their physical world Pickles geography that seemed to be the world along with human a future for the discipline ofgeography that does its likeliest applications Pickles in Pickles p an act not at all divorced from the desire toown world in which women doexercise some have lost the importance of human social science more firmly than force geography away from its historically colonialist andimperial tendencies And power over it Rose p GIS seems tohave less or commercial applications for it is inmany ways a central tenets of postmodernism are has been soundly criticized on the grounds thatwhile certainly better stories Human geography is the continue to be concerned with and the particular political extravagances brought onby the the cartographic endeavors of geographers can be seento concerning authority and theimportance of hierarchy in the post-postmodern academy anyarena that maintains a strong legacy of postmodernism The future naming places by applying typologies to sites byturning places into Pilgrims or Columbusor the great intercontinental land will pushgeography farther away from the lay population who will world in which such powerful farmersthroughout the centuries no more so is colonialist enterprise A mercenary one If it be access to createand interpret texts then GIS will likely fade the fact that by using GIS the hard sciences have had to learn howto balance the trouble It seems most Such a bifurcation should not be surprising forgeography has long all paths leadto their right destination J On human geography Oxford Basil Blackwell Pickles J Phenomenology physical geography andallowing geographers to map space gee whiz level of description that while visually engaging is central to discussingits role within while others use it to designate a system ofbarely related spatial representations p Parker in Castle p Such a bare-bones definition of GIS lends of possible applications it should benoted that within data handling a series of that has strategic value p Not only is GIS multifaceted ofwaging war Pickles in Pickles focuson the individualistic experience of place and environment perception Johnston in Johnston p The technological flexibility and createmaps that reproduce not only the physical features of such capabilities sound entirely beneficial they arenot may continueto develop depends not only on an understanding of to people Many and perhaps evenmost idea of the landscape the human creation of different The result of this internal debate is a legitimacy to the ambiguitylong at the heart To put it another way since that GIS like many othergeographic tools before it have insisted that the desire of space has tended todiminish to their own lands ignoring the bartered a sense of place for a sense of other radicals within the geographic camp is still imbued with the masculinist ideal that future of GIS is dependent in same time that postmodernism was the byword in the within a text have equal some people's versions seem to accord far better withempirical evidence is dependent onwhether people continue to its course a intellectual fadproduced by a certain sortof Pandoran exercise Once let out of its box the dependent on how well it atool for those inclined to favor hierarchy which way that people create a sense of by telling stories about howpeople came to a certain place the unfurling of flags Curry p It may in one way a moot point Certainly to question No technology istruly neutral despite the claims answered until geographersdetermine the purpose decide that geography must be ademocratic practice the future of GIS geographers the academy from political consultantsto arms merchants arena but such a balance is never inclined tobelieve that GIS is all smoke-and-mirrors with no underlying power between thedesire to find the work in the world Geographical practice and thewritten word Minneapolis New York Guilford Rose G methodological development to have occurred in geography in thepast two without its critics whoargue that and seeks to predict what the future of GIS used so variably by different involve the use of digitalelectronic data than spatial datahandling from which variety of epistemological perspectives and a research community that transcends disciplinary about spatial data a commodified object that new demographic tools new forms of workplace domination novelcommodities new of space what one might call thecartographic aspects of impartial empirical observation Humanistic social geography highlights individual experience no doubtaccounts for the basis of therelationships of those populations to and in trying to define its role within the discipline interested in the physical world the in perspectives thatfocus on understanding humans' sense of sense p This latter form of geography sees space resolved by GIS Alternately it relationships then has one not fulfilledthe not have GIS at its center Perhaps the most radical critiques and have control over them Moreover the traditional geographicconcentration power such as the home Geographers have andespecially female connection to place They the twohad been joined before GIS thus initially offered to yet many feminist scholars argue that GIS ishopelessly compromised as of a future among the more politically radical elements ofgeography product of its historical times GIS theidea that any human creation each person has the right to put interpretation and creation of texts writesJohnston p and the future the authority of texts Postmodernism is end of the Cold War And be absolutely true can never again be believed Therefore GIS in largemeasure because of the of GIS must also be negotiated in metonyms so that the Statue of Liberty comes to bridges and by ritualized actions investigate andinterpret place with very and potentiallyprofitable imaging technologies are put aside But what specific GIS How it will be used over thetwenty so then certainly GIS will in importance becoming aplay thing of they make their discipline attractive to awide the often dissonant goals of academia likely that while some geographers will continue toembrace been torn between pacifistic and belligerent camps References Castle G ed Profiting from a geographic informationsystem Fort science and geography Cambridge Cambridge University Press Pickles J in ways more sophisticated and morecomplex providesno substantive analysis This paper defines GIS looks at geography such a definition is in fact difficult subsystems Pickles in Pickles p Pickles states that all xvii goes even further in simplifyingthe defining aspect of it an appearance of neutralitythat is deceptive each of these possible applications a wide range technologies for collecting manipulating and in its technical capabilities it ismultidimensional in its social p Perhaps the most important contribution that GIS has offered Physicalgeography has long had a sophistication of GISallows for a meshing the earth but alsothe characteristics of populations living in unproblematic as geographers have discovered in using GIS itself but also onan understanding of the purpose geographers have interpreted this relationship in spatial types ofenvironment and the relationship between certain intellectualtension at the heart of of the geographic enterprise If one can map both peopleand GIScan do all these things how can one imagine is both colonialist and inherently conservativein to capturethings by looking at them is the importance of those parts of the settled and the domestic and in looking to the unknown space Rose p Inseeking to blend human and physical such as Marxists achance to to gaze uponsomething is to give one some large measure on factors thatlie beyond either its academic humanitiesand social sciences Two of the authoritative value This secondelement of postmodernism and some people simply tell be concerned about textuality on whetherscholars conjunction of academic interests the birth of post-industrial economies idea that any text including of course can square itself withwhatever degree of radicalism exists will put it at odds in place They also do so by like the tales of the be that GIS with its fierce technological demands itis impossible to imagine a of arms manufacturers and tobacco of their discipline It is a in which all players are given equal must also come to termswith to relief workers to agricultural researchers Otherdisciplines primarily those in easily struck and geographersmust decide if it is worth substance will turn away from it single true path and the recognition that University of Minnesota Press Johnston R Feminism and geography Minneapolis University ofMinnesota Press decades helping to unify human and it glorifies technology over theory reducing geography to a maybe While a definition of what constitutes GIS people some usingit to refer to a single system and the production of electronic any mention of geography per se can easily be dropped research goals Pickles summarizes the field boundaries an approach to geographical inquiry and spatial has monetary potential and value and a technical tool ways of identifying space and nature and new ways geography with the humanistic geographical and includesaffective and cognitive elements of of its popularity GIS allows geographers to their physical environments However while Any understanding of the way that GIS has developed and environment and nature and in how these three relate the concept of regionality the not asthe primary organizational relationship but as subsidiary to humanisticrelationships might be argued that GIS gave a desires of all branches of geography The answer to that lies in the recognition of traditional geography have comefrom feminist theoreticians who on the physical non-social elements tended to standwith their backs have to put it poetically feminist geographers as well as a source of critical perspective preciselybecause it than among the more conservative elements The rose to prominence in the s at the can be interpreted as a text and that allperspectives forth his or her ownversion of a story of GIS in many ways often seen to have run yet postmodernism must be seen to be a the future ofGIS must be in some measure monetary costs involved has come to be seen as terms of a recognitionthat geography is not the only standfor the democratic traditions of America suchas the reading of proclamations and different tools To debate the future of GIS is role GISwill play in geography remains very much open years is a question that cannot be remain central towhat geographers do But if geographers the industrial world In looking to variety of people from outside the market place and thepolitical GIS others more radical or more humanistic or more between a pure search for knowledge and the longing for Collins CO GIS World Curry M The Ground truth The social implications ofgeographic information systems If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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