eric H losang | Universität Leipzig (original) (raw)

Papers by eric H losang

Europa Regional, 2014

Nutzungsbedingungen: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine Weiterverbreitung-keine B... more Nutzungsbedingungen: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine Weiterverbreitung-keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses Dokuments. Dieses Dokument ist ausschließlich für den persönlichen, nicht-kommerziellen Gebrauch bestimmt. Auf sämtlichen Kopien dieses Dokuments müssen alle Urheberrechtshinweise und sonstigen Hinweise auf gesetzlichen Schutz beibehalten werden. Sie dürfen dieses Dokument nicht in irgendeiner Weise abändern, noch dürfen Sie dieses Dokument für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, aufführen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Mit der Verwendung dieses Dokuments erkennen Sie die Nutzungsbedingungen an. Terms of use: This document is made available under Deposit Licence (No Redistribution-no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, nontransferable, individual and limited right to using this document. This document is solely intended for your personal, noncommercial use. All of the copies of this documents must retain all copyright information and other information regarding legal protection. You are not allowed to alter this document in any way, to copy it for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the document in public, to perform, distribute or otherwise use the document in public. By using this particular document, you accept the above-stated conditions of use.

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Sep 1, 2022

In den 60er Jahren wurde die ZDF-Fernsehsendung "Aus Forschung und Technik" zu einer Ik... more In den 60er Jahren wurde die ZDF-Fernsehsendung "Aus Forschung und Technik" zu einer Ikone deutscher Fernsehgeschichte. Wahrend Forschung und Technik damals einen eher komplementaren Charakter hatten, sind sie in der Sozialforschung heute haufig weniger kompatibel. Dabei ist die technische Ausstattung fur die Generierung und Organisation von neuem Wissen und die Entwicklung angepasster Methoden unabdingbar. Verschiedene, den Forschungsprozess hemmende Szenarien ergeben sich durch den offensichtlichen Mangel im Rahmen der Verfugbarkeit adaquater, dem jeweiligen Forschungsdesign angepasster technischer Ausstattung sowohl an Universitaten als auch an reinen Forschungsinstitutionen. Vor dem Hintergrund sich stetig verandernder rechtlicher Auflagen zur Verwendung von Open-Source Software, der unterschiedlichen Rezeption und Verwendung von Speicheroptionen, neuen Modellen im Bereich von Software-Lizenzen sowie dem haufig zu beobachtenden Wildwuchs inkompatibler Soft-/Hardware/-Netzwerk-Kombinationen finden sich Forschende – auch wenn sie die technische Ausstattung bereits im Projektantrag berucksichtigt haben – haufig in einem Geflecht zahlreicher, oft unflexibler Losungen wieder, die die alltagliche Arbeit erschweren konnen. Anhand von Beispielen werden diese institutionellen Hemmnisse erlautert und Ihre Berucksichtigung im Antrags- und Umsetzungsprozess diskutiert. Abschliesend werden im Rahmen der geschilderten, tatsachlichen (Un-)Zusammenhange bezuglich technischer Ausstattung und Forschungsprozess verschiedene best practice Ansatze zur Uberwindung des sich auftuenden, teilweise institutionalisierten Grabens zwischen beiden abgeleitet.

Cartographic Journal, Apr 3, 2018

Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 2020

More than 20 years after John Pickles (1995) published 'Ground Truth', Wilson's book tells an upd... more More than 20 years after John Pickles (1995) published 'Ground Truth', Wilson's book tells an updated story of the development of Critical GIS. In some parts based on previously published articles reflecting Pickles seminal work (Wilson, 2015a), the author takes on the task to trace the social history of GIS within the Critical GIS agenda and proposes an approach to answer the question 'what are the new conceptual and theoretical challenges for critical engagement of geographic information systems' (p. 3). Wilson argues that the recent broadening of what is meant by GIS 'requires a new apparatus to both theorize and practice these technologies of geographic representation' (p. 4). The intriguing title of the introduction 'But Do You Actually Do GIS?' (with 'Do' intentionally in italics) captures the central question, of what constitutes 'doing' GIS and opens the discussion for all GIS practitioners, be it scholars and analysts, post-structural and positivist geographers, map-makers and cartographers. Here, Wilson develops his idea of drawing and tracing lines as a metaphor to the (past and recent) development of the 'discursive terrain of GIS' that is both, growing through new technologically driven approaches and 'marked by [internal and external] stratifications and destratifications' (p. 12). His new lines reflect those contour lines between, at first glance, contradicting levels to theorize and practice GIS, that are the reason to stay with the trouble to trace consistencies and continuities while highlighting breaks, or punctuations, in these lines (p. 74). To follow this approach, Wilson elaborates on five aspects (lines) which occur 'at different speeds and produce different volumes in the crevices they create: (1) criticality, (2) digitality, (3) movement, (4) attention, and (5) quantification' (p. 22), indicating the titles of the main chapters.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Nov 30, 2018

Transformations, for many the core of analytical cartography, involve manipulations of semiotics ... more Transformations, for many the core of analytical cartography, involve manipulations of semiotics and semantics. To develop a framework for contemporary geovisualization, we draw on concepts behind Jacques Bertin's lesser known work among Anglo-American cartographers, La graphique et le traitement graphique de l'information (1977), translated 1981 as Graphics and graphic information-processing. This book describes the transformations of semiotics and semantics in a matrix-based process to create graphics, especially geovisualizations. It offers a logical development from concepts presented in the semiology of graphics and took up semantics and communication aspects. The framework we develop starts with the insights from this book but moves beyond Bertin's questionable assumption about the necessity of a prior accord between map producer and map reader regarding semiotics and semantics for successful communication. We reconsider the involved semiotic and semantic manipulations for the discursive analysis of geovisualizations beginning with Barbara Petchenik's insight that cartographic communication accounts for biases and physiological limits. We broaden these considerations to include distributed cognition concepts from Edward Hutchins, which account for preferences and physiological limitations regarding their broader institutional and cultural settings. The revised linkage of semantics and semiotics, which understands map design as a process of developing boundary objects, focuses on the transformations for making geovisualizations. This analysis holds relevance for improvements to geovisualization and the development of enhancements for cartographic design.

International journal of e-planning research, Jul 15, 2022

Participatory planning holds important lessons for improving local government capabilities and re... more Participatory planning holds important lessons for improving local government capabilities and responsiveness, but overall procedural regulations and statutory frameworks make its relevance for participatory IT development often just a matter of compliance. Developing analytical visualisations to support local government faces significant challenges because of the complexity and uncertainty about long-term benefits. The authors designed the process and local government staff understood their participation in an organised process. After each segment and the programming implementation, a new version of the software integrates improvements for participants. The participation process involved staff from ultimately 18 local governments. Participation became a verb describing the process that informed the directions to which the authors took up local government input.

Lecture notes in geoinformation and cartography, Sep 8, 2017

Rarely there is a greater booster to advancing cartographic coverage of an area than becoming a t... more Rarely there is a greater booster to advancing cartographic coverage of an area than becoming a theatre of war. While the topography of the European nation states experienced a—by and large—steady improvement since the French Revolution, the colonial peripheries often experienced such significant updates only during times of contention or change of sovereignty. This paper discusses the cartographic build-up and fall-out of one such colonial clash, the Spanish American War of 1898. That conflict involved territories scattered around half the globe from Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean to the Philippines in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean. This case study evaluates various aspects of how becoming part of the “imperial consciousness” is transforming the cartographic coverage of hitherto peripheral colonial territories like the Philippines and Puerto Rico from—by and large—private and small scale maps to official and detailed large scale map (series). This paper inspects the development of cartography of the said territories from the 1850s to the early 1900s, emphasizing administrative requirements, public demand, forms of publication and changes in content.

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2019

In December 1884, John W Powell, second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), addressed ... more In December 1884, John W Powell, second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), addressed the U.S. Congress seeking authorization to begin systematic topographic mapping of the United States. Alaska had just become an official district of the country, extending its territory to the most westerly point of the continent. The Westward Expansion (which officially ended 1912 when Arizona was admitted to the Union) therefore came to an end, and with it the subsequent contiguous mapping of US territory became the final act of nation-building. Cartographically, this was undermined by the publication of the Atlas of the Philippine Islands by the US Coastal and Geodetic Survey in 1899. As defined by Edney (2009), there is a difference between imperial cartography (maps used to create an image of the empire as a legitimate entity and to articulate a claim for territory) and colonial cartography (maps of varying sorts used for the immediate administration within a dependency); the former...

KN - Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information, 2013

Die stetige Neuentwicklung zahlloser Online-Visualisierungstechniken gibt Gelegenheit, den Begrif... more Die stetige Neuentwicklung zahlloser Online-Visualisierungstechniken gibt Gelegenheit, den Begriff Atlas in anderen Perspektiven anzudenken. Die Idee, einen digitalen Atlas als gleichsam unvollständige „Loseblattsammlung“ zu konzipieren und ihn damit für eine flexible Erweiterung zu öffnen, versucht das Projekt „Europe in Maps“ konsequent umzusetzen. Das bewusste Ignorieren bisheriger Atlasparadigma wie Vollständigkeit, einheitliche Darstellung, Nutzung vordefinierter Techniken erlaubt die Kombination zahlreicher Visualisierungsansätze, die sich nicht zuletzt an neuen Nutzergruppen orientieren können. „Europe in Maps“ umfasst bisher fünf technisch abweichende Module, die sich jedoch mit einer Thematik beschäftigen, die dem Atlas gleichsam eine inhaltliche Klammer verleihen - die Darstellung Europas in unterschiedlichen Kontexten.

Abstracts of the ICA, 2019

Abstracts of the ICA, 2021

Maps seem to be a universal medium for communication, easily understood and appreciated by most p... more Maps seem to be a universal medium for communication, easily understood and appreciated by most people, regardless of language or culture. They can be, when interpreted as cultural texts, a mirror of culture and civilization. “They do more than describe the areas of habitation, as they locate humans in a cultural and psychological sense as well”. However, what happens to maps when they are produced in a specific political context? Are they still universal or do they transfer/communicate a politically influenced and influencing message? These questions are driving the pioneering interdisciplinary project Digital Atlas of Geopolitical Imaginaries of East Central Europe in the 20th Century, DAPRO, that makes maps accessible for research on history and geographical imaginaries.

The Digital Atlas of Geopolitical Imaginaries of East Central Europe in the 20th Century, DAPRO (... more The Digital Atlas of Geopolitical Imaginaries of East Central Europe in the 20th Century, DAPRO (Digitaler Atlas Politischer Raumbilder zu Ostmitteleuropa) is a pioneering interdisciplinary project that makes historical maps accessible for research on history and geographical imaginaries. Thus renamed Geoimaginaries the online atlas will function as a learning management system for initial teacher training/education in historical and political sciences and a reference source that covers maps and mapping-related topics for the humanities. In this context, a cartographic analysis framework is implemented reflecting the modes of use of different mapping elements such as projections, scale and generalisation in the cartographic design process. In addition, the use of graphic variables is thoroughly examined by comparing their theoretical foundations with their implementation (deconstructing by reconstructing). This allows the identification of types and patterns of cartographic manipula...

Abstracts of the ICA

After decades of prosperity, atlas producers are faced with a serious number of challenges. Those... more After decades of prosperity, atlas producers are faced with a serious number of challenges. Those challenges are both external and internal, either due to shifted external conditions or because of internal shortcomings. Internal challenges include, inter alia, the missing Web presence and PR, traditional atlas concepts, static GUI design, an overload of atlas features, default atlas contents, and repetitive visualization, whereas external influences, such as user behaviour, technological advancement and content that reflects new ideas and methods intensify these challenges. Three provocative statements-1) atlases as mere collections of maps, 2) atlases rely on old-fashioned concepts, and 3) atlas map design is unattractiveare then picked in order to demonstrate possible approaches in rejuvenating atlas concepts.