Qualitative GIS

A Mixed Methods Approach
Meghan Cope
Sarah Elwood
Qualitative GIS
June 2009 | 192 pages | Sage UK
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ISBN: 9781446244562
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ISBN: 9781412945653
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Description

Geographic Information Systems are an essential tool for analyzing and representing quantitative spatial data. Qualitative GIS explains the recent integration of qualitative research with Geographical Information Systems.

With a detailed contextualizing introduction, the text is organized in three sections:

Representation: examines how researchers are using software techniques to create new types of representations: either 'quantifying qualitative data' or using non-numerical data in GIS to provide texture and context

Analysis: discusses the new techniques of analysis that are emerging at the margins between qualitative research and GIS; this in the wider context of a critical review of mixed-methods in geographical research

Theory: questions how knowledge is produced, showing how ideas of 'science' and 'truth' inform research, and demonstrates how qualitative GIS can be used to interrogate discussions of power, community and social action

Making reference to representation, analysis, and theory throughout, the text shows how to frame questions, collect data, analyze results, and represent findings in a truly integrated way. An important addition to the mixed methods literature, Qualitative GIS will be the standard reference for upper-level students and researchers using qualitative methods and Geographic Information Systems.

Contents

Introduction: Qualitative GIS: Forging mixed methods through representations, analytical innovations, and conceptual engagements

Introduction: Qualitative GIS: Forging mixed methods through representations, analytical innovations, and conceptual engagements

Non-quantitative GIS

Non-quantitative GIS

PART ONE: REPRESENTATIONS

  • Metadata as a site for imbuing GIS with qualitative information
  • Multiple representations, significations, and epistemologies in community-based GIS
  • Geographic information technologies, local knowledge, and change

PART TWO: ANALYTICAL INTERVENTIONS AND INNOVATIONS

  • Grounded Visualization and scale: A recursive analysis of community spaces
  • Computer-Aided Qualitative GIS: A software-level integration of qualitative research and GIS

PART THREE: CONCEPTUAL ENGAGEMENTS

  • Affective visual geographies and GIScience
  • Towards a genealogy of qualitative GIS
  • Conclusion: For Qualitative GIS

Additional materials

Description

Geographic Information Systems are an essential tool for analyzing and representing quantitative spatial data. Qualitative GIS explains the recent integration of qualitative research with Geographical Information Systems.

With a detailed contextualizing introduction, the text is organized in three sections:

Representation: examines how researchers are using software techniques to create new types of representations: either 'quantifying qualitative data' or using non-numerical data in GIS to provide texture and context

Analysis: discusses the new techniques of analysis that are emerging at the margins between qualitative research and GIS; this in the wider context of a critical review of mixed-methods in geographical research

Theory: questions how knowledge is produced, showing how ideas of 'science' and 'truth' inform research, and demonstrates how qualitative GIS can be used to interrogate discussions of power, community and social action

Making reference to representation, analysis, and theory throughout, the text shows how to frame questions, collect data, analyze results, and represent findings in a truly integrated way. An important addition to the mixed methods literature, Qualitative GIS will be the standard reference for upper-level students and researchers using qualitative methods and Geographic Information Systems.

Contents

Introduction: Qualitative GIS: Forging mixed methods through representations, analytical innovations, and conceptual engagements

Introduction: Qualitative GIS: Forging mixed methods through representations, analytical innovations, and conceptual engagements

Non-quantitative GIS

Non-quantitative GIS

PART ONE: REPRESENTATIONS

  • Metadata as a site for imbuing GIS with qualitative information
  • Multiple representations, significations, and epistemologies in community-based GIS
  • Geographic information technologies, local knowledge, and change

PART TWO: ANALYTICAL INTERVENTIONS AND INNOVATIONS

  • Grounded Visualization and scale: A recursive analysis of community spaces
  • Computer-Aided Qualitative GIS: A software-level integration of qualitative research and GIS

PART THREE: CONCEPTUAL ENGAGEMENTS

  • Affective visual geographies and GIScience
  • Towards a genealogy of qualitative GIS
  • Conclusion: For Qualitative GIS

Additional materials

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Qualitative GIS

A Mixed Methods Approach

Meghan Cope , Sarah Elwood
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June 2009 | 192 pages | Sage UK

Format Published Date ISBN Price
Hardcover 31/03/2026 9781412945653 $249.00
Paperback 31/03/2026 9781412945660 $124.00
Lifetime 28/03/2023 9781446244562 $105.00
180 Day Ebook 28/03/2023 9781446244562 $72.00

Geographic Information Systems are an essential tool for analyzing and representing quantitative spatial data. Qualitative GIS explains the recent integration of qualitative research with Geographical Information Systems.

With a detailed contextualizing introduction, the text is organized in three sections:

Representation: examines how researchers are using software techniques to create new types of representations: either 'quantifying qualitative data' or using non-numerical data in GIS to provide texture and context

Analysis: discusses the new techniques of analysis that are emerging at the margins between qualitative research and GIS; this in the wider context of a critical review of mixed-methods in geographical research

Theory: questions how knowledge is produced, showing how ideas of 'science' and 'truth' inform research, and demonstrates how qualitative GIS can be used to interrogate discussions of power, community and social action

Making reference to representation, analysis, and theory throughout, the text shows how to frame questions, collect data, analyze results, and represent findings in a truly integrated way. An important addition to the mixed methods literature, Qualitative GIS will be the standard reference for upper-level students and researchers using qualitative methods and Geographic Information Systems.


Table Of Contents:

  • Introduction: Qualitative GIS: Forging mixed methods through representations, analytical innovations, and conceptual engagements
  • Non-quantitative GIS
  • PART ONE: REPRESENTATIONS
  • Metadata as a site for imbuing GIS with qualitative information
  • Multiple representations, significations, and epistemologies in community-based GIS
  • Geographic information technologies, local knowledge, and change
  • PART TWO: ANALYTICAL INTERVENTIONS AND INNOVATIONS
  • Grounded Visualization and scale: A recursive analysis of community spaces
  • Computer-Aided Qualitative GIS: A software-level integration of qualitative research and GIS
  • PART THREE: CONCEPTUAL ENGAGEMENTS
  • Affective visual geographies and GIScience
  • Towards a genealogy of qualitative GIS
  • Conclusion: For Qualitative GIS

Recent Product Reviews:

'An important and meaningful, even an innovative, resource in its field of inquiry. It makes a major contribution to geography by describing, presenting and analyzing the way in which qualitative information may be included in geographic information systems. GIS technology in general is not merely a tool for processing quantitative or qualitative spatial data. Qualitative GIS in particular constitutes a knowledge base with philosophical (ontological and epistemological) foundations. The incorporation of qualitative methods into GIS produces a whole that is "greater than the sum of its parts". Moreover, the book contributes to our understanding of the process in the social sciences by giving a visual presentation of social and spatial phenomena, and thus its contribution goes beyond the geographic discipline' - Geography Research Forum 'Qualitative GIS is coming of age, and this definitive collection explains why it deserves broad attention. These carefully selected essays by leading researchers, organized around a broad conception of qualitative GIS that extends beyond multi-media data integration to embrace new software tools and interpretive, situated epistemologies, will push readers to rethink not only their preconceptions about qualitative GIS, but also about GI science and critical GIS. GIS researchers, practicioners, observers and users will find much to chew on here' - Professor Eric Sheppard, University of Minnesota, USA

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