Critical GIS

What is the Meaning of Critical?

The term critical has specific meaning in the context of critical GIS and contemporary geography. It was first used to refer to the critical theory developed by the Frankfurt school of social theorists (e.g., Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas) in the early 20th century. Recent use of the term by geographers is closely associated with the terms critical social theory or critical geography, which encompass work informed by a variety of perspectives, including feminist, antiracist, postcolonial, Marxist, poststructuralist, socialist, and queer perspectives. A common characteristic of critical perspectives is that they aim at challenging and transforming existing systems of exploitation and oppression in capitalist society, as well as fostering progressive social and political change that improves the well-being of the marginalized and less powerful social groups.

The Critical GIS Movement

The rapid growth of GIS as an area of research in the 1980s caused considerable concern among human geographers. Critical GIS emerged in the early 1990s as a critique of GIS. While GIS researchers maintained that the development and use of GIS constitute a scientific pursuit capable of producing objective knowledge of the world, critical human geographers criticized GIS for its inadequate representation of space and subjectivity, its positivist epistemology, its [Page 57]instrumental rationality, its technique-driven and dataled methods, as well as its role as surveillance or military technology deployed by the state.

To initiate constructive dialogue between GIS researchers and critical social theorists, the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) sponsored a conference at Friday Harbor in 1993 that led to the development of a “GIS and Society” research agenda. The agenda was further developed at two subsequent meetings, one in Annandale, Minnesota, in 1995, and another in South Haven, Minnesota, in 1996. The second of these meetings was the NCGIA Initiative 19 specialist meeting, titled, “GIS and Society: The Social Implications of How People, Space, and Environment Are Represented in GIS.” The research agenda that was formulated at the conclusion of the meeting included seven themes: the social history of GIS, the relevance of GIS for community and grassroots perspectives, issues of privacy and ethics, GIS and gender issues, GIS and environmental justice, GIS and the human dimensions of global change, and alternative kinds of GIS. By 1995, over 40 papers concerning the social and political implications of GIS had been published. Many of these papers were included in two collections published in 1995: Ground Truth, edited by John Pickles, and GIS and Society, a special issue of Cartography and GIS, edited by Eric Sheppard.

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