Indigenous Cartography and
Cartography of the Indigenous


image credit: Smithsonian (2016). The Great Inka Road: Engineering and Empire.
[online exhibit]
Dr. Timothy Norris : tnorris@miami.edu
Data and Maps
  • What is a Geographic Information System (GIS)?
  • What is a Data Model?
Defining GIS
  • Geographic Information System
    • collections of tools, data, hardware, and people
  • Geographic Information Science
    • systematic inquiry into research questions about the relationship between GIS and socio-natural systems
  • Geographic Information conStruction
    • tool building for storage, collection or analysis of geospatial data

Wright, D. J., Goodchild, M. F., & Proctor, J. D. (1997). Demystifying the Persistent Ambiguity of GIS as ‘Tool’ versus ‘Science’. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87(2), 346-362. doi:10.1111/0004-5608.872057

GIS as a collection of datasets that are organized in a systemic way (as layers).

The system of organization can be digital (software) or analog (drawn on paper).

The actual process of organization is done with a purpose by human beings.
adapted from: https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_essentials-of-geographic-information-systems/index.html
GIS Possibilities ...
  • Critical GIS
  • Qualitative GIS
  • Feminist GIS
  • Indigenous GIS

Models
Are Tools used to represent something (usually a real thing) at a level of abstraction that is useful for some purpose

image credit: NASA (2019). 2019 Hurricane Season Resources. NASA Global Precipitation Management
[blog] https://gpm.nasa.gov/applications/hurricanes-2019, last accessed 2023-03-20.

image credit: NASA (2019). 2019 Hurricane Season Resources. NASA Global Precipitation Management
[blog] https://gpm.nasa.gov/applications/hurricanes-2019, last accessed 2023-03-20.
Data Models
Relational
Hierarchical
Key Elements in Relational Model
  • Entities
  • Relationships
  • Attributes (aka "data")
Conceptual Model with entities and relationships
Relationship Cardinality
example with attributes
Mapping, Postmodernism, Indigenous People ...

"Perhaps I am naive, but I am optimistic that -- despite history -- maps can be constructed on the basis of mutual courtesy and respect." (p 5)

"Like many, they [Inuit informants for colonial map making processes] were unwitting conspirators to their own disenfranchisement." (p 9) But now "... they made a conscious and concerted decision to engage with the enfranchised culture on its own terms, turning its technology and politicas to their own purposes." (p 10)?

Rundstrom, Robert A. (1991). Mapping, Postmodernism, Indigenous People And The Changing Direction Of North American Cartography. Cartographica, 28(2), 1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/5j46-51t2-7m42-316g.
SpatioTemporal Data Model for TEK ...

"The model for dealing with this complexity over the last century has been what Scott (1998) refers to as "Authoritarian High Modernism," that is, making the landscape and the people legible to outsiders. This has huge dangers, as to be legible is to be more easily controllable. Not to be legible is to be invisible. Mapping is a two edged sword." (p 30)

Mackenzie, Kierin, Pirker, John, & Reitsma, Femke. (2020). Towards a SpatioTemporal Data Model for Traditional Ecological Knowledge/Indigenous Knowledge. Cartographica, 55(1), 29-41. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/cart-2017-0027.
Scott, James C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
SpatioTemporal Data Model for TEK ...
  • Cyclical and multi-cyclical time
  • Proper time and proper space
  • Fluid and dynamic spatiotemporal boundaries
  • Support for narratives
  • Contingency-based timing
  • Privacy safeguards
Mackenzie, Kierin, Pirker, John, & Reitsma, Femke. (2020). Towards a SpatioTemporal Data Model for Traditional Ecological Knowledge/Indigenous Knowledge. Cartographica, 55(1), 29-41. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/cart-2017-0027.
SpatioTemporal Data Model for TEK ...
"The spatiotemporal motif offers a higher level abstraction when dealing with Indigenous spatiotemporal data." (emphasis mine) (p 39)
Mackenzie, Kierin, Pirker, John, & Reitsma, Femke. (2020). Towards a SpatioTemporal Data Model for Traditional Ecological Knowledge/Indigenous Knowledge. Cartographica, 55(1), 29-41. doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/cart-2017-0027.