Geographic information systems in developing countries– what are the ethical issues we need to be aware of?

Abstract

The use of GIS in developing countries has been coined as an oxymoron for several reasons, but mainly due to the fact that the historical burden of maps is to have been used as a tool of control and technological dominance. Participatory approaches in mapping and GIS allow to bring a greater degree of social responsibility and ethics in research and visualisation of local spatial knowledge. The article focuses on the description of selected reasons that led to the sceptical attitude towards GIS, and to identify the basic ethical issues of collection and interpretation of spatial information in developing countries on an example of mapping water resources in the village Koffiekraal in South Africa.