Qualitative GIS Symposium: AAG NYC 2012

We're hoping to extend the efforts of the Qualitative GIS conference held at Cardiff University in August 2010, drawing on the energies of the Qualitative GIS collection edited by Meghan Cope and Sarah Elwood and published by Sage in 2009.

Call for Papers: Qualitative GIS: Practice and Method
Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting
24-28 February 2012
New York, NY

Organizers:
Mei-Po Kwan (Ohio State University)
Stephen Burgess (Cardiff University)
Matthew W. Wilson (University of Kentucky)
Marianna Pavlovskaya (Hunter College, CUNY)

There is considerable and growing interest in Qualitative GIS across a wide range of disciplines and subfields in Geography. As one particular outgrowth of the GIS & Society tradition, Qualitative GIS provides an opportunity to shift technological practices by incorporating multiple modes of inquiry. As an approach, it integrates GIS and qualitative methodologies in geographical research (Kwan and Knigge 2006), and, as Cope and Elwood (2009:172) have suggested, it is “constituted simultaneously as practice and method.” This symposium seeks to bring together interested researchers in order to consider and examine Qualitative GIS as both practice and method while addressing the ontological, epistemological and methodological challenges in conducting geographical research with Qualitative GIS. It will also offer the opportunity to reinforce and develop international networks of like-minded researchers in order to identify potential avenues of collaboration. The unfolding debate will be summarised and addressed in an end of symposium plenary which will also identify future opportunities for development of the approach. Depending on interest, the symposium may start with a pre-conference event on Thursday 23rd February. 

We would like to invite contributions that address any areas of Qualitative GIS. These include, but are not restricted to:

• Theorising Qualitative GIS

• The challenges of mixing GIS and qualitative methods

• Qualitative GIS as consumed/produced media

• Findings and reflections from empirical studies employing Qualitative GIS 

• Interdisciplinary work and Qualitative GIS

• Qualitative GIS and international collaboration

If you are interested in participating in this symposium, please send a short abstract of no more than 250 words to Mei-Po Kwan (kwan.8@osu.edu), Stephen Burgess (burgesss@cardiff.ac.uk), Matthew Wilson (matthew.w.wilson@uky.edu) and Marianna Pavlovskaya (mpavlov@hunter.cuny.edu) by September 10. Please contact us if you have any questions. Guidelines for preparing abstracts are available at: 

http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/call_for_papers/abstract_guideline