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Beyond Ground Truth: GIS and the Environmental Knowledge of Herders, Professional Foresters, and Other Traditional Communities

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Abstract

As a result of increasingly apparent and problematic effects of global information system and remote sensing technologies, there has been increased emphasis on demonstrating and incorporating indigenous environmental knowledges in land use and cover analysis. Such approaches, though ethnographically revealing and politically efficacious, tend to reproduce a model of difference between local and scientific knowledges that is epistemologically untenable. This paper demonstrates an alternative use of geographic information system and remotely sensed imagery to both demonstrate the partiality of mapping technology and show possibilities for critical usage of the tool. Using a case from India, the research shows a method to elicit and explore competing environmental knowledges, including and especially those of “scientific” experts. The analysis concludes that, for both local producers and expert managers, the cultural meaning of landscapes is dependent on their roles in regional production and resource politics.

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  1. Department of Geography, Ohio State University, 1132 Derby Hall, 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, Ohio, 43210

    Paul Robbins

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Robbins, P. Beyond Ground Truth: GIS and the Environmental Knowledge of Herders, Professional Foresters, and Other Traditional Communities. Human Ecology 31, 233–253 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023932829887

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