Excavating power relations: A multiscale analysis of the role of GIS at the extractive frontier
Marion PLANQUE, Université de Genève - Institut de Gouvernance de l’Environnement et Développement Territorial (GEDT), Switzerland
Extractive activities induce local upheaval which have significant repercussions on the environment. Such geographical transformations make mining activities particularly suitable for geographic information systems (GIS)-based analysis of mining impacts (Werner, Bebbington, and Gregory 2019). However, the literature on critical GIS studies has pointed out how the use of GIS tools and data can worsen situations of inequality or competing claims. By representing boundaries and delimitations thought or present on land as visible and concrete lines on a map, GIS can trigger conflicts by acknowledging competing claims (Aitken and Michel 1995). In that sense, GIS practices appear as politicized objects of power, highlighting choices that are made upstream in the selection, analysis and representation of the data used to produce them.
The last ten years have seen an increased use of data -including geospatial one- aiming at acquiring a total and absolute vision of the environment. Monitoring environment policies rely indeed on this assumption that 'better data' leads to 'better decisions' since transparency and disclosure of information are seen as markers of scientific and objective practices (Turnhout, Neves, and de Lijster 2014). This research emphasizes on how actors involved in contested mining environments (state, local governments, international organizations, NGOs, researchers or local communities) build representations of the environment (i.e. mining areas) and how these representations are -or are not- integrated in or conveyed by GIS knowledge. Moreover, this research interrogates the apparent objectivity of GIS produced knowledge, that aims at reflecting a quantifiable and measurable reality (Elwood 2006). While the increasing use of geographic information and GIS is fostering a technology-related knowledge, this work questions the power dimension associated with the knowledge created by GIS, and unveil its links with control and surveillance (Pickles 1995).
Mots clés : Mining|Power|Knowledge|GIS|Legitimacy
A103983MP