GIS - (Short Introductions to Geography) by Nadine Schuurman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This guide enables students of human geography to take a critical look at the set of practices, hardware and software that are together described as GIS.

• A guide to GIS for students of human geography.
  
• Outlines the distinct approaches to inquiry employed in GIS and illustrates their relevance for human geographers.
  
• Traces the history of GIS and human geography from 1970 to the present.
  
• Illustrates the challenges of data collection, classification in the context of multiple stakeholders and epistemological approaches.
  
• Tracks the use of GIS in applied contexts through the stages of problem definition, data acquisition and classification, choice of software, spatial analysis and graphic output.
  
• Includes an inventory of tools and information related to GIS, including web-based resources.
  
• Supported by a website, www.blackwellpublishing.com/schuurman.

From the Back Cover

This guide enables students of human geography to take a critical look at the theory and practices that together comprise GIS. It outlines the value - both intellectual and technical - of GIS for human geographers, recognising the positive effects GIS has had on the discipline but also pointing out its limitations.

The guide addresses issues important to human geographers such as how data are represented through digital models and how different ontologies emerge from different data models. It explores the influence of cultural and social context on the development of theory in GIS. As a means of illustrating the analytical, interpretative and methodological issues associated with GIS problem solving, the text describes two sets of challenges that GIS users and researchers face. The first includes data collection, organization, standardization and the difficulties inherent in interpreting semantics. The second refers to the problem of developing spatial analysis and models. Both sets of challenges draw on contemporary research and use examples from on-going research. The guide also includes a close reading of a GIS analysis from health geography in order to elucidate the conceptual and operational bases of GIS. A final chapter provides an inventory of tools and information related to GIS, covering web-based resources, current texts, and theoretical approaches and critiques of GIS. The guide is supported by a website featuring all the illustrations from the book in full colour.

Review Quotes

"Geography and non-geography students interested in GIS should read this book. It is an important contribution that elegantly illuminates GIS systems and GIS science. By giving close attention to the details of rigorous GIS analysis, the impact of GIS on society, and the relationship of GIS to geographic epistemologies and social theory, Schuurman provides a unique and up-to-date summary of the field." Eric Sheppard, University of Minnesota

"This is an excellent choice for an introductory undergraduate GIS class, and it should also be required reading for all critics who have dismissed GIS as being purely technical enterprise. It takes the reader through the nuts and bolts of GIS concepts while at the same time scrutinizing its intellectual and social implications. The discussion of GIS applications, highlighted by contemporary case studies, does an admiral job of conveying the curious messiness of actual GIS practice" Stacy Warren, Eastern Washington University.

"Schuurman develops an intellectual and practical history of the field and of the technology....the book offers insights into the development of our field that have recieved little coverage in other venues. Further, Schuurmann offers excellent examples of reflexivity in GIS practice, showing how we might make the social processes of GIS use more transparent to ourselves and to others." Progress in Human Geography, Vol 29/1, 2005

About the Author

Nadine Schuurman is Assistant Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University. She did her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia and integrates science and technology studies in solving technical problems in GIS. She has published in both human geography journals such as PIHG, Society and Space, and Gender, Place and Culture as well as GIS journals including Cartographica and Cartography and GIS.