Since Sheppard’s article was published in 1995, certain technological and societal conditions have encouraged GIS research to expand into GIScience, and thus current GI research has affected our modern “way of knowing” (9). For example: with easy internet access and norms, VGI developed and then affected society (e.g. citizens now check VGI-based traffic reports). Before delving into VGI’s involvement, I would like to reflect the social cognitive scientist Sperber’s theory on how societal norms develop onto GIS.
Dan Sperber argues there are certain private conceptions of reality and there are certain public conceptions of reality. These public representations are the ideals, beliefs, and epistemologies that are publicly held; however, they are generalized and do not properly represent intricate privately/individually held perceptions. These generalized public conceptualizations that are not consciously and frequently thought about (e.g. colonialism, capitalism), are what developed GIS originally and are also conceptions that GIS helps shape. Since Sheppard’s article, different generalized public conceptions have arisen, and these new publicly-held views have altered GIS. For example: inductive reasoning is now also considered a legitimate way of understanding truths, and because of this PPGIS and VGI were established. Although public conceptions of knowledge (including technology) have broaden, which allows more private (and marginalized) representations to be included, there are still underlying hierarchal epistemologies that GIScience still prioritizes, and thus will affect which research is more attractive. Since VGI focuses on “technological information” compared to PPGIS’s “cultural information,” VGI is more “attractive” in GIScience over PPGIS (Sieber and Haklay 2015, p. 11).
Moreover, Sheppard states that GIS will “develop far more sophisticated solutions” to “account [for] a greater detail and variety of information,” but “this capability can lead analysts” to focus on technicalities, thus losing “sight of the larger picture altogether” (14). I certainly agree with this statement because I have recognized this pattern while researching VGI. Originally, VGI issues focused on centralizing and standardizing data uncertainty (i.e. accuracy, credibility), which assumed universal standards to make VGI data valuable. This is similar to what we discussed in last week’s seminar, GIScience assumes there are universalities (i.e. “brute facts”) that can be compared, and, with this assumption, ontological patterns can be developed (Searle 1995). However, these publicly held assumptions do not account for all the privately-held variations. For instance, a VGI producer’s conception of data validity may not match the VGI user’s conception of data validity. Fortunately, some recent VGI researchers have recognized these hierarchical norms that assume universality within GI research, thus GIScientists, such as Fast and Rinner (2014), have argued that VGI should focus on how spatial data is collected within a system. In another case, Grira et al. (2009) argued that VGI producers should communicate properly with VGI users so that the provided valid spatial data can attempt to match the user’s perceptions of valid data.
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Fast, V. and Rinner, C. (2014). A Systems Perspective on Volunteered Geographic Information. International Journal of Geo-Information, 3, 1278-1292.
Grira, J., Bedard, Y., Roche, S. (2009). Spatial Data Uncertainty in the VGI World: Going from Consumer to Producer. Geomatica 64(1), 61-71.
Searle, J. (1995). The Building Blocks of Social Reality. In The Construction of Social Reality. The Free Press, New York.
Sieber, R and Haklay, M. (2015). The epistemology(s) of volunteered geographic information: a critique. Geography and Environment, 1-12.
Sperber, D. (1996). Interpreting and Explaining Cultural Representations. In Explaining Culture: A Materialistic Approach. Oxford, UK: Cambridge.