Ground-Truthing: Geographic Information System as a Community-Based and Antiracist Praxis

• In Event: Critical Race Theory and the Spatial Analysis: Cases of Praxis to Disrupt Racial Injustice

Abstract

Purpose: Critical race scholarship in education has developed a methodological framework that employs GIS and spatial analysis from a critical race lens (Solorzano & Vélez, 2007; Pacheco & Vélez, 2009). This approach, known as critical race spatial analysis (CRSA) extends GIS from its traditional use in geography and urban planning into new avenues and possibilities for examining educational interests concerned with the social, cultural, political, and historic role of space and race as it relates to schools and educational (in)opportunity. By re-imagining how socio-spatial relationships are explored, analyzed, and displayed, CRSA positions GIS as a critical research and pedagogical tool for addressing spatial inequities and furthering racial justice efforts within education.

Theoretical Frameworks & Modes of Inquiry: Situated within CRSA, this paper furthers GIS as a community-based and critical race praxis through a study of Latina (im)migrant mothers who initiated and led a GIS project to explore spatial indicators of educational (in)opportunity, drawing evidence from their own lives and the lives of their children. Data sources include GIS maps produced, participant-observation over 8 months, and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 mothers. These data provided a nuanced look at how these mothers engaged GIS to tell counter cartographic narratives (Knigge & Cope, 2006) about the racial divides, or “color lines,” defining uneven “geographies of opportunity” (Tate, 2008) in their school district.

Result/Significance: Findings of this study suggest both methodological and pedagogical considerations for the use of GIS in critical race scholarship in education. Although exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) was initially used in the development of the maps, it was the mothers’ intimate knowledge of the community and collaborative analysis in the process of map-making that was key. By rooting the analytical capabilities of GIS in their own lived experience, the mothers drove an iterative inquiry that led to the building of a cartographic narrative that spoke back to the post-racial narrative taking hold of educational reform in their local context. We argue that by employing GIS mapping as a community-based praxis, the mothers essentially “ground-truthed” the maps, making visible spaces and spatial relationships that otherwise would go unnoticed. “Ground-truthing,” in this sense, re-imagines the process from its traditional definition as a technique whereby satellite images are verified by GIS technicians. CRSA pushes us to re-consider what it means to “ground-truth” and whose expertise we rely on to authenticate maps. We argue that the mothers, as CRSA “ground-truthers” transformed the power of the maps by weaving a spatial narrative that linked their current efforts to historical struggles for educational equity. Methodologically, their efforts reveal the potential of GIS and CRSA, specifically, to build spatial models of the world from the lived experiences of People of Color.
Beyond the importance of GIS for critical race research, it also serves as an important pedagogical tool for teaching about race and racism. Through a CRSA framework, GIS maps function as teaching devices that highlight the importance of geographical and spatial features for maintaining racial divides in schools and society.

Authors

• Veronica Nelly Velez, Western Washington University

• Daniel Gilbert Solorzano, University of California - Los Angeles