Traditional knowledge GIS

Lore & Background

Traditional knowledge GIS employs cartographic and database management techniques such as participatory GIS, map biographies, and historical mapping. Participatory GIS encourages public involvement in all aspects of a GIS and is widely accepted as necessary for sound environmental and economic planning in developing areas, incorporating sacred sites and traditional land use practices into scientific analysis. However, researchers doubt its efficacy in attaining land tenure or fighting legal battles due to lack of expertise among local individuals and lack of access to technology. Map biographies track practices of local communities for preservation or to argue for resource protection or land grants, allowing recording and playing of oral histories and representations of abstract ecological knowledge. Historical mapping analyzes and documents events meaningful to a particular tradition or locale, with cultural and humanitarian benefits from including maps in the historical record.

Reader's Guide

Traditional knowledge GIS has significance in influencing debates over land rights and resource management in ecologically sensitive areas, where interests of local residents often conflict with those of migrant workers, state conservation units, and domestic or foreign mining or logging enterprises. GIS hardware and software are used to identify spatial trends in interpreting these conflicts. The overall effectiveness of traditional knowledge GIS has not been conclusively determined. Advocates cite successes in acquiring land titles, managing local databases, and creating new skill sets for local communities worldwide, while detractors cite cost, the need for specialized training, and cultural differences as reasons GIS may be inappropriate. Economic development through traditional knowledge GIS is subject to local ownership over systems and full access to relevant data and training, a situation rare outside of industrialized nations, so little progress has been made in this field of research. There is a disparate nature to implementations across geographies, with developing nations less likely to gain access to expensive databases and cartographic methods compared to those in developed nations.

Did You Know?

• Traditional knowledge GIS differ from ordinary cognitive maps by expressing environmental and spiritual relationships among real and conceptual entities.
• Participatory GIS is widely accepted as necessary for sound environmental and economic planning in developing areas, but researchers doubt its efficacy in attaining land tenure or fighting legal battles.
• The Nunaliit Atlas Framework was developed by and is maintained by the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University.
• Researchers encounter significant obstacles to data acquisition due to the sensitive nature of much of the data sought, and locals may distrust the motives of outside consultants.