What Is GIS?

In technology part, GIS is the abbreviation of Geographic Information Systems
Computer-based (hardware & software) system that:

  • Create locationally referenced data
  • Stores and organizes locationally referenced data
  • Performs spatial analyses
  • Creates visualizations, usually in map form (but also tables, graphs, dashboards)

In theory part, GIS is the abbreviation of Geographic Information Science

  • Theory behind how to solve spatial problems and how to implement GISystems
  • The study of the design, data, and methods of GISystems
  • Computational techniques and data structures
  • The use, representation, analysis, and ethics of geo-referenced data

GIS also is A combination of

  • The science of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering spatial data
  • Tools and techniques such as land surveying, remote sensing, cartography, GIS, GPS, photogrammetry
  • The social structures that enable the enactment of the science and tools
  • The people enacting it all

Functions of GIS

GIS can:

  • identify and analyze nearby Locations
  • Find Spatial Patterns
  • Determine Change Over Time
  • Collect and Organize Spatial Information
  • Track and Share Real-Time Data
  • Manage Emergency Response

Fundamental concept & Keywords

  1. Theory and Practice

    • Theory
      • A set of rules for understanding how something works
      • Tied to the work of science and scholarship; looking for patterns, equations, or rules for how the world works
    • Practice
      • Action towards a goal. The enactment of Theory
      • Tied to the work of technologists, explorers, tinkerers; doers rather than pure thinkers

  2. Structure and Agency

    • Structure
      • The underlying set of rules for how a society works, especially, how it reproduces itself
      • A type of theory that emphasi zes the overarching rules of a society
    • Agency
      • The ability of the individual to exert choice of will within the social structure
      • Agent-based social theories emphasize activism, change
      • Agent-based modeling in GIS

  3. Objectivity and Subjectivity

    • Objectivity
      • The idealized mental position for scientific study
      • The ability to objectively detect the world and analyze it, free from personal opinions and biases
    • Subjectivity
      • A set of beliefs that consciously (or unconsciously) affect one’s thought processes and actions
      • The “myth of neutrality/objectivity” is undercut by scholars studying race and gender, who highlight the embeddedness and situatedness of all persons - our position in the world affects how we see the world

  4. Ontology and Epistemology

    • Ontology
      • Philosophical definition: The study of the categories of existence and the relationships among them
      • In GIS: classifications and relationships between categories
      • Think of a filing cabinet and the selection of folders
    • Epistemology
      • Definition: the study of knowledge
      • How do we know what we know? What type of evidence do we accept?
      • What data helps decide what goes in each filing folder

  5. Nature and Society

    • Nature: Long viewed as places untouched by humanity; more holistically as the physical world, including humanity
    • Society: The organization of humanity in its many forms; traditionally seen as separate from / better than nature
    • Nature/Society Critiques
      • The idea of nature is socially produced;the physical world exits but there is no ‘nature’ aside from humans’ varying ideas about the physical world
      • Human impacts are so widespread (climate change, pollution, land use) that no part of the Earth is unaffected by humanity