DA-11 - GIS&T and the Digital Humanities
This entry reviews the use of GIS&T in the digital humanities and in the spatial humanities, highlighting opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations between GIScientists and humanities scholars, including in history, archeology, and literary studies. Challenges are highlighted as well, including epistemological and ontological differences between the spatial, abstract, and quantitative view of the world of GIS&T and GIScience and the humanities emphasis on place and qualitative methods. The potential of mixed methods to bring together different epistemological perspectives is discussed in this context. Scale is identified as a promising geographical framework for humanities research, both in its metaphorical aspects and as intended in cartography. Examples of the use of GIS&T and GIScience in the humanities are provided, including historical GIS, geohistorical gazetteers, archeology and GIS, and GIS in literary studies. The entry is framed historically, with reference to the work of Bakhtin, Braudel, and Hägerstrand, who are early influencers of the spatial turn in the humanities. Among the research directions briefly explored are the GIS of place, deep maps, and qualitative GIS, which exemplify how the collaboration between GIScience and the humanities can be strengthened.
DA-38 - GIS&T and Retail Business
Where should a retail business occur or locate within a region? What would that trade area look like? Should a retail expansion occur and how would that affect sales of other nearby existing locations? Would a new retail location have the right demographic or socio-economic customer base to be profitable? These are important questions for retailers to consider. Within the evolving landscape of GIS, there is more geospatial data than ever before about the potential customer. In retail, the application of maps and mapping technology is growing to include commercial real estate, logistics, and marketing to name a few. There has been an increased momentum across commercial applications for geospatial technologies delivered in an easy to comprehend format for a variety of end users.