Indigeneity and spatial information science

Abstract

Spatial information science has given rise to a set of concepts, tools, and techniques for understanding our geographic world. In turn, the technologies built on this body of knowledge embed certain "ways of knowing." This vision paper traces the roots and impacts of those embeddings, and explores how they can sometimes be inherently at odds with, or completely subvert, Indigenous Peoples' ways of knowing. However, advancements in spatial information science offer opportunities for innovation whilst working towards reconciliation. We highlight, as examples, four active research topics in the field, to support a call to action for greater inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in spatial information science.

Keywords

• data sovereignty
• indigenous knowledge
• spatial information
• gis
• location-awareness
• sdi
• uncertainty
• ontologies