GIS og geografien til væpnet konflikt

As a research tool in the social sciences, GIS has not been used to nearly the same depth relative to applications in the natural science, where GIS have a longer history dating back to the late 1960s. Current and future opportunities for the application of GIS in the social sciences are considered tremendous. This course aims to point at some of the many opportunities. Whether the research design is based on qualitative or quantitative methods, GIS can provide the researcher with added analytical capabilities. Examples on how GIS can support both qualitative and quantitative methodologies will be given during the course, but with an emphasis on the latter.

The course aims to give participants an extensive hands-on experience with the use of GIS operations and to apply georeferenced data. A number of exercises will be given to allow students to become familiar with the essential GIS functionalities. Many of these exercises will provide students a model on how to populate a data table (that can later be used for a statistical analysis) with geographic or disaggregated variables. Lectures will be balanced between the theoretical and the practical with several examples. Examples are mostly drawn from the use of GIS for the study of civil armed conflict, but as the techniques are generic, course participants should be able to see their relevance for other purposes.

Knowledge - after completing the course, the student should:

• Have generic knowledge about Geographical Information System (GIS) and the nature of geographical data
• Have specific knowledge about the applications of GIS technology in the field of empirical peace and conflict research
• Understand how spatial autocorrelation may be a problem in conventional statistics, and how the use of spatial models can address these shortcomings

Skills - after completing the course, the student should demonstrate the ability to

• Use geographical software (QGIS and ArcGIS)
• Combine spatial data from different sources
• Create distance measures
• Visualize spatial data in understandable maps
• Use scripting to automate workflows and manage large datasets

Lecture and lab constitute five days of teaching where tentative more than half of these teaching hours will be lab hours. The course will be held either fall 2022 or spring 2023. Contact Department of Sociology and Political Science for information on when it will be taught.