GIS is known to have its pre-defined categories and way of being in the world. In fact, GIS has its own ontology, or even ontologies (as we can’t even decide if it is a tool or a science, we must have different ways of thinking about GIS). The question that must be asked is when is a parcel of land part of a river network, and how can this be represented in GIS today?
Smith and Mark outline in their paper that ways of thinking about mountains differ from culture to culture and language to language, this is also true when thinking of GIS. GIS has a certain way of thinking about real-world phenomena that may differ from aboriginal perception of the same phenomena. Sieber once mentioned that in GIS, a river network is constrained to the line segment that represents it, but for aboriginals, the river might also continue as part of the land over which they portage their canoe.
The same can be said for other geographic phenomena, such as mountains, as in Smith and Mark’s article. Mountains are represented in reality as continuous landforms indicated by a steep elevation gradient, though the commons will identify a single mountain as an object, and even offer it a name. Aboriginal peoples may attribute spiritual value to a mountain, or be the basis of their world view, as quoted in Smith and Mark. However, in GIS a mountain can be represented as a gridded digital elevation model, a point or a polygon.
Ontologies represent reality for a certain group, and also relates to GIS as a field.
-rsmithlal