Geographers have been confronted with an extraordinary range of new technologies for representing, analyzing, presenting, and disseminating geographic information: geographical information systems, multimedia, hypermedia, mapping, image processing, and the World Wide Web to name a few. These technologies present practical, methodological, and theoretical challenges to geographers. Yet the complex and multifaceted nature of new geographic information technologies is matched by the complex and multifaceted nature of geography itself. Geography is a discipline of strong contrasts: physical geography and human geography, and the various, sometimes incommensurable approaches to geography - positivism, marxism, realism, humanism, postmodernism, etc. Thus we have a broad array of new geographic information technologies, and a complex and multifaceted geography: It is the substantive relationship between the two which underpins the research reported in this presentation.
My background in cartographic and information design has shaped my research interests in issues of visual representation within the context of geographic information technologies. But I am also a geographer with interests in landscape, regional, social, and historical geography, and I am interested in examining the relations between my geographical interests and new geographic information technologies. Given this context, my presentation consists of three interrelated parts.
First, I examine the historical relations between cartography and geography. I suggest that geographers have continually raised questions as to how maps and other visual methods relate to theoretical and conceptual differences in geography - questions which have not been adequately addressed by cartographers. I relate these critiques of maps and mapping by geographers to current critiques of mapping and geographical information systems, critiques which suggest that particular theoretical and philosophical perspectives have dominated cartography, GIS, and geographic visualization, while others have been left relatively unexamined.
Second, I will present a conceptualization of geographic visualization that expands upon cartography s traditional focus on the map and communication while more clearly linking geographic visualization to conceptual and theoretical issues in geography. In particular, I examine the range of visual forms which are used by geographers, and the explicit relations among various visual forms and text within the context of hypermedia. I suggest that the characteristics of hypermedia are amenable to current theoretical and methodological issues in landscape, regional, and social geography.
Third, I will present an example of how this general conceptualization of geographic visualization works in practice, using a case study of the human and environmental aspects of derelict and marginal landscapes and the people who inhabit these places. My interest is in examining how marginal and derelict landscapes are produced and utilized. I use visualization methods, broadly defined, to address methodological issues posed by geographers such as Andrew Sayer, Edward Soja, and Alan Pred.
My case study examines the making of a particular marginal
landscape in north-central Pennsylvania, an area currently known
as the Quehanna Wild Area. My visual methodologies - guided by
the theoretical and methodolological issues noted above - allow
me to examine how a particular marginal place is made over time
and space, at different scales of incorporation, including the
role of different groups of people and different projects in this
process. My study reveals the pulsating incorporation and
disincorporation from broader economic and social and cultural
geographies, confounding the assumption that places are marginal
because they are not incorporated and suggesting that they are
marginal because they are incorporated. This raises the issue of
the utilization of such marginal places: who is interested in
holes in the map and what happens in such places? I examine the
role of marginalized populations in my case study; human
reactions to abandonment, and the use of marginalized places as a
form of social control of marginalized populations. This suggests
that marginal and derelict landscapes are not merely the passive
outcome of human activity; they are actively engaged in cultural,
economic and social processes. My visualization methodologies,
including a range of visual forms derived and constructed with
GIS, image processing, mapping, and hypermedia software, provide
a means of examining the complex spatial and temporal context of
marginalized places and people. My interest is in exploring how
geographic understanding can guide and shape research on
visualization design and methods: how geography can shape
visualization. At the same time, I am interested in how visual
methods can guide and shape research in geography: how visual
methods can shape geography.
I plan to develop several aspects of the research described in
the position statement. I will continue to examine the relations
between different theoretical and philosophical approaches to
geography and visual representation, geographical information
systems, and other geographic information technologies. This
research will include both theoretical and applied studies,
particularly in my geographic areas of interest (cultural,
historical, social, landscape). I am particularly interested in
why certain approaches to geography seem to avoid the use of
visual representation, mapping, GIS, and other geographic
information technologies. In addition, I am interested in
examining the relations between representational forms (text,
images, maps, diagrams, graphs ) in the context of GIS,
multimedia, and hypermedia, again in relation to geography and
geographic research. Finally, I plan to pursue geographic
research projects (using geographic information technologies) on
marginalized people and landscapes: the spatial characteristics
and movement of marginal people (prisoners, boot camps, the
removal of recovering drug addicts and welfare recipients from
cities to small towns, and the characteristics of people who live
in declining and marginal regions), causes and utilization of
marginal places, heritage tourism and industrial heritage in
marginalized places, the geography of garbage and toxic waste and
marginal places as dumping grounds, spectacular activities in
marginal places (such as the Atomic Energy Commissions plans to
use nuclear explosions for civil engineering projects in the
1960s), etc. I am interested in how geographic information
technologies relate to all these topics. I also plan to examine
the use of such technologies for community empowerment and
community information systems, particularly in marginal,
declining, and stressed areas and regions.