Emerging GIS themes and the six senses of the new mind: is GIS becoming a liberation technology?

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Abstract
The past 20 years have witnessed the emergence of a plethora of research themes in GIS that are quite different from conventional GIS practices. This article develops a preliminary framework to loosely knit together the diverse intellectual threads for the emerging GIS themes. It is found that the framework for the six senses of the whole new mind (design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning) captures the six major emerging GIS themes remarkably well. Conventional GIS practices have been predominantly concentrating on automated cartography/map-making, spatial modelling, geocomputation and database development with the goal for efficiency, which tend to be closely associated with the left-side/slow thinking capabilities of the human brain. In contrast, the emerging GIS themes focus more on geonarratives, qualitative/mixed methods, storytelling and synthesis with the goal for achieving equity and social justice, which tend to be more closely associated with the right-side/fast thinking capabilities of the human brain. Evidently, these new GIS practices have the potential to enable GIS users to transcend what Heidegger called the enframing nature of technology and motivate them to explore new areas of enquiry with greater sensitivities to the social and political dimensions of GIS application. Increasingly, these emerging GIS practices are transforming GIS into a liberation technology that continues empowering GIS users in their quest for a better, more equitable and sustainable world. These emerging themes also pose new research and educational challenges for the GIS community in the years ahead.

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