Miller places dominate GIS practices within the realm of placed-based methods based off of a past where technology and theory began to intersect. In a finite world, limitations are place on an individual to appropriate how much time and resource is spent on an activity. Their decisions are ultimately based on their socio-economic condition. Because of this, a people-based GIS should complement placed-based GIS better understand urban systems. This was a great article that introduces the reader to time geography and activity theory. For me, it made me think about how a person is placed in a particular location because of their socio-economic condition, and now how a person is somewhere with x,y,z conditions (which was intuitive for me at first. Consider looking at a map, where a point represents a person and an attribute table holds their socio-economic profile. To me, the visualization on the screen associates a person to a particular location, and not attributes that bind them to that location.).
While reading the data collection techniques of STA and how new technologies can increasingly improve the cost, rigor, and time associated with data collection, a reoccurring thought was, how can this be applied to the marginalized population where access to mobile devices, computers or knowledge of the technology is limited? How can technology improve their situation in such a way researchers can easily collect and study their space-time activities to offer a policy prescription to remedy this? I think it’s key to recognize our own positionality when we consider how IT has “shrunk” the world for some in a positive way, empowering them to access more information, knowledge while decreasing travel time. On the flip side, it has shrunk the world for others in terms of limiting access and resources to improve their livelihoods.
-tranv