Research supports the use of geographic information systems (GIS) to inform and direct action in geography and urban planning. As critical researchers, we also see the power of GIS in participatory projects with students to analyse power, privilege, and oppression in order to move toward action. Understanding that meaning shifts through an interplay of social, linguistic, and material interactions, GIS has the unique ability to show fluidity yet connectedness across geographic borders, providing intriguing opportunities as a research tool. Drawing on recent studies of GIS in research, we recognise the potential to build understanding of spatial context as both socially and politically constructed, but also the tendency to see a map as bounded data in finality. We argue here the importance to return the data back to the material itself in order to avoid reifying a flat, discursive representation of the material without claiming agency. Through the planning of a participatory project with GIS as a research tool, we consider the implications, cautions, and potential of using GIS as a fluid and incomplete representation of a moment in time and space that is also a path moving toward something else.

中文翻译：

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以地图为对象：超越现实，为社会变革而努力

研究支持使用地理信息系统（GIS）来指导和指导地理和城市规划中的行动。作为重要的研究人员，我们还看到了GIS在参与项目中的作用，学生可以在其中分析权力，特权和压迫以采取行动。地理信息系统了解含义会随着社会，语言和物质相互作用的相互作用而发生变化，因此具有独特的能力来显示跨地理边界的流动性和连通性，从而提供了作为研究工具的有趣机会。借助最近在研究中对GIS的研究，我们认识到了在社会和政治上构建对空间背景的理解的潜力，而且也认识到将地图最终视为有限数据的趋势。在这里，我们认为将数据返回到材料本身的重要性，以避免避免在不要求代理人的情况下统一材料的扁平，话语表示形式。通过以GIS作为研究工具的参与性项目的规划，我们考虑了将GIS用作时间和空间的流动性和不完整表示形式的含义，注意事项和潜力，这也是一条朝着其他方向发展的道路。