My research and publications have addressed three of the conceptual issues outlined in the "Call for Participation", namely the representational logic of GIS, the proliferation of spatial databases, and the ethical issues in GIS research (Goss 1994; 1995a ; 1995b). I have been particularly concerned with the application of GIS as a central component of geodemographic marketing research. The business application of GIS is said to be the fastest growing segment of the industry and there are a number of large corporations selling integrated spatial databases, GIS, and decision-making tools which represent consumers as objects in abstract space to be "scouted" and "targeted" by a strategic intelligence. I have critically examined the metaphors employed in the promotional discourse and the conception of reality that is presumed in these systems. I have argued that the representational logics reproduce technical power over social life.

This "deconstruction" of geodemographics, however, is of limited value if it is not communicated to practitioners and use to reform practice. My concern now is how to incorporate this critique into pedagogy, and I have committed to developing a course to teach a more responsible retail and marketing analysis. With Matthew McGranaghan I am developing an course on spatial analysis for business applications that will draw students of geography, urban and regional planning, business, and tourism industry management using an instructional version of Claritas' Compass (one of the major geodemographics systems) which is now available through the Kansas Geographic Bureau. The course will be initially offered at the graduate level.

The goal of the course, which will be team taught, is to teach concepts and techniques involved in geodemographic systems as well as basic spatial analysis, with a particular concern over the assumptions behind them and the effects of their application. This will include consideration of data sources, database management, and questions of privacy; computer cartography, GIS, and questions of representation; aggregation, areal units, and problems of ecological inference; and ethics of marketing practice. The idea is not to reject the methods entirely, but to encourage responsible use, as far as that is possible, and I believe that geographers sensitized to social theory are best equipped to do this.

I would like to discuss this proposal with others who teach GIS and who have attempted to integrate philosophical and political concerns into their classes. I suspect that in most cases, practitioners have added a "critique" section to the course rather than integrating these concerns thoroughly from the outset. This is perhaps difficult given the main purpose of instructing in methods. In the proposed course, however, the primary initiative comes from a critical perspective, and the goal is to teach critical theory around the methods of GIS and geodemographics.

Although concerned primarily with pedagogy, this does raise issues of evaluation and hence pedagogical research--how effective will such courses be in communicating critical theory and reforming marketing practice? In addition, it is expected that students and the instructors will conduct research on issues of representation in the context of this course. In particular, we will directly investigate the validity of the representations of social life and social space in geodemographic systems and examine the potential of such systems in social science research. The context of Honolulu has, in fact, proven challenging for geodemographic analyses due to the complexity of the multi-ethnic population and the relatively recent penetration of large scale retailers.

A fourth conceptual issue identified in the "Call for Participation" addresses how GIS can be used in decision-making to represent the needs of marginal groups. In my work I have not thus far considered the "progressive" use of GIS in participatory research or conflict resolution, but I have several graduate student advisees who are presently conducting or developing research on community resource mapping in Indonesia, and consequently it is a topic about which I am learning more. My students are evalua ting the work of environmental NGOs in Eastern Indonesia and I have been impressed with their reports on the use of mapping as a tool in consciousness raising and developing local resource management institutions. I have also been influenced by the work of Jeff Fox and his associates (1994; 1995) and Nancy Peluso (1994) on community resource mapping in Indonesia, the former in particular using GIS effectively. I am not sure how much success depends upon the techniques themselves, as opposed to the environmental initiative and the potential empowerment of simple mapping exercises, but certainly GPS integrated with GIS would make the mapping less labor intensive. The question remains, however, of how practicable GPS/GIS based mapping will be in a mountai nous rainforest environment (even if it is certainly more so than conventional field mapping) and how "sustainable" the mapping might be given the lack of access of isolated communities to the technology and their dependence on outside expertise to conduct the research.

I am planning to take a sabbatical year in order to study transmigration in Eastern Indonesia and I am interested in incorporating a community mapping element in my research into adaptation on the agricultural frontier, in a context of intense resource conflict. The larger study examines processes of socio-economic differentiation which inevitably involvels investigation into land acquisition and use, and relations with indigenous people. Although, not the primary focus of my research, I intend to use GPS/GIS to document the land use conflicts between the transmigrants and indigenous populations. Detailed land-use maps have been made by government consultants, but these, needless to say, do not seem to conform with the "mental maps" of transmigrants or indigenous residents, nor necessarily to structure their territorial activities. The transmigrants frequently exploit forest resources outside of their assigned land rights and the indigenous people, who are primarily gatherers and shifting cultivators, range extensively in the forest. The situation is further complicated since the area of investigation is the site of a national park (with a large number of endemic species and an climate-vegetation zonation from tropical swamp to alpine scrub) and logging concessions held by corporations headquartered in Jakarta.

The first task is to map the property and land use claims of the various interest groups and to identify areas of overlap. This will involve using GPS to map the resources of the indigenous people and transmigrants, and overlaying these with ditigization s of the maps produced by the national park authorities and forestry ministry. The first task will necessitate living in a mountain village, travelling with individuals to make resource inventories, and consulting with focus groups composed of villagers. Much of the mapping work will be undertaken by a graduate student together working on a thesis together with a junior faculty member of the local university (Universitas Pattimura).

The primary goal is to map the resource claims of the indigenous villages and identify areas of systematic encroachment. I do not presume that GIS can capture the total spatial experience of the indigenous people for I am well aware that GIS effects a pa rticular representation of the world. I recognize also the dangers of reification involved in mapping of territory and present resource uses. However, in this case I suspect that some form of objectification is necessary to establish the legitimacy of traditional resource claims and to document points and sites of conflict. This will entail a mapping of current active use of resources, past use of resources, and intended or potential future use of resources. It will also involve mapping time-space pathways of resource-expoiting acitivites in the forest.

There are, in fact, some obvious cases of resource conflict, such as the protection of bird species in areas of the national park long used by the indigenous people for trapping (exotic birds are their main source of cash income); the "illegal" logging of trees by tranmisgrants in both the national park and under "sharecropping" agreements within the village territories of the indigenous population; and the development of permanent agriculture by migrants in the lowland sections of the village territories. Mapping the customary claims of villagers and areas of conflict will at least provide a basic inventory that can be used in negotiations with the national park authorities, the transmigrants, and the loggers, although outcome of negotiations will inevitably depend upon interpretations of the complex land law and definitions of national interest.

These two future pedagogical and research goals fit with two of the research themes of the Specialist Meeting, namely the administration and control of populations and the political ecology of natural resource access and use. My "position", then, is that I remain extremely suspicious of the practice of geodemographics, but wish to both teach its limitations and investigate its potential for alternative research applications; I remain suspicious of the representational strategies of GIS, but believe that a part of my objection to GIS is that it has been mainly applied for the purpose of social control rather than empowerment. I realize that the form of representation of reality in GIS contributes inevitably to a particular way of seeing that lends itself to surveillance and social control, but also believe that that in come contexts the strategy may be turned against itself. We have to at least explore such possibilities.

References

Fox, J. ed. (1994) Spatial information and ethnoecology: Case studies from Indonesia, Nepal, and Thailand. East-West Center Working Papers: Environment Series no. 38. Honolulu: East-West Center.

__________ (1995) Spatial information technology and human-environment relationships. East-West Center Working Papers: Environment Series no. 43. Honolulu: East-West Center.

Goss, J.D. (1994) We know who you are and we know where you live. In Geographic Information and Society: A report. Report of the workshop, Friday Harbor Washington, November 11-14, 1993, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

__________ (1995a) Marketing the new marketing: the "strategic" discourse of advertising for Geodemographic Information Systems. In Pickles, J. (ed) Representations in an electronic age: geography, GIS and democracy. New York: Guildford Press.

__________ (1995b) "We know where you are and we know where you live": the instrumental rationality of geodemographic information systems. Economic Geography 71,2: 171-198.

Peluso, N. (1994) Whose woods are these? The politics of mapping state and indigenous forest territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Paper presented at the Annual Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, March 23-27.

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