Geography of Geographic Information:
Understanding the Practices of Situated Knowledge in the Emerging Technosciences of GIS

Outline of Presentation

Maps:
archetype of "immutable mobiles" that remain situated

An example (or two)
Land-ownership information (cadastre)

Geography of Geographic Information
Empirical differences worldwide
6 "dimensions" of variation

How does technology intervene?
New geographies of connection
GIS data models as implemented in administrative hierarchies

Conclusions

---

Maps as "immutable mobiles"

Archetype of inscription
Latour: LaPerouse on the beach of Sakhalin
(could be Captain Cook or any explorer)
­some part of the world rolled up to be mobile
­returned to "centre de calcul"
Shades of the Panopticon?

[Aside: Colonial mapping was far from panoptic...
Edney, M. H. 1997. Mapping an Empire: The geographical construction of British India 1765-1843. Chicago: Chicago University Press.]

While mobile, the map does not lose its reference to a place ­
remains situated, implies a geography
maps as memory are institutions, not one-shot, must revisit, reproduce the changes

---

Philosophy of Maps

Map as mirror
"correspondence" theory of representation
requires unitary connection (world => map)
roundly rejected by cartographers
(not just Denis Wood Power of Maps)

Instrumentalism
map does work, serves interests (power)

Constructivism
maps as the result of practices; create the images within which people operate

Deflationary Realism
no need for a single story: accept different roles
Natural Ontological Attitude (Fine) : core position
anti-essentialism; yes maps can be true

---

An Example: Land-ownership

Ancient origins: constitutive of local power and elites

Division of Labor (and Expertise)

public: assessor, public works engineer
private: surveyor, appraiser, lawyer

Geographically contingent

• Germany: Grundbuch - registration with state guarantee; includes Alsace
  
• France: state geometry [Napoleonic cadastre], private chain of title (Hussier de Justice...)
  
• USA: public memory system
  • (often without index)
  • Three regimes for title search (by state)
  • contrast Public Land Survey ­ metes & bounds

---

Specific story:
Christian County, Missouri (1985)

County Court House has multiple offices dealing with ownership.

• Tax records: on file card with addresses for 50 years scratched out
• Register of Deeds: man with green eyeshade - interface book and page
  • Abstract Company: same man - interface through index, neatly packaged
    

Computer reevaluation project under way (1985)

• replaced file card with database
• appraisal performed using soils map
  (analysis of quality of land)

---

How does technology intervene?

Enforcement of logical rules
Completeness
(Cadastre never needed to include Louvre)
More importantly: equity of taxation
(detect untaxed parcels: many cities)
Consistency
gaps and overlaps in geometry
Relationships to other features
Overlay and its uses and abuses...

Software industry
creates worldwide network
solutions share common origin: Redlands CA

Overall: technology alters the affordances - what is hard or easy.

---

Consequences of administrative hierarchy

At a given level (say county)
Internal management:
­ same area covered by different agencies
coordination between disparite disciplines
(largely a matter of selecting sources, ensuring cooperation, creating boundary objects?)

Finer levels
­ area subdivided, distinct units of similar type
coordination of peers; attempt to enforce standards

Higher levels treat the county as one of many peers (attempt to enforce standards)

Thus
Standards apply to all levels but your own...

---

Conclusion

Varibility in geography of geographic information likely to remain despite investments in computer technology.

Historic differences likely to be carried along in "modern" systems.

Standards likely to be ineffective or highly contentious.

Geographic component can play an important role in understanding distributed collective practices.

Presented in Vienna, 28 September 2000