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A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the

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Mei-Po Kwan

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the Annals , Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100:5, 1060-1075, DOI:
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 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the
Annals
Mei-Po Kwan
Department of Geography, The Ohio State University

This article, as part of this forum that celebrates the 100th volume of the Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, reviews the cumulative contribution of this journal to the advancement of methods, models, and
geographic information systems (GIS) from 1911 to 2010. Using data in an Endnote bibliographic database
and the ISI Citation Database, I analyze the trends of contributions in these areas in the journal over the past
century. I conduct a content analysis on these articles in the journal and identify several enduring and prominent
themes in them. I also highlight research directions that are particularly promising for future studies. This article
concludes that the cumulative contribution of the Annals to advancing research in methods, models, and GIS
over the past century is enormous. Since the restructuring of the Annals into four sections in 2001, the Methods,
Models, and GIS section has played a pivotal role in significantly increasing the proportion of method papers
in the journal, reversing a downward trend that had been in place since the 1970s. Key Words: Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, geographic information science, geographic methods, models, MMGIS.

Como parte del foro con el que se celebra el volumen 100 de Annals of the Association of American Geographers,
este artı́culo reseña la contribución acumulada de esta revista para el avance en métodos, modelos ysistemas
de información geográfica (SIG) de 1911 a 2010. Con base en información obtenida de una base de datos
bibliográficos de Endnote y de la ISI Citation Database, analizo las tendencias de las contribuciones presentadas
en esta revista sobre estas áreas a lo largo de la pasada centuria. Hago un análisis del contenido de estos artı́culos
en la revista e identifico en ellos varios temas perdurables y prominentes. También destaco la dirección que están
tomando las investigaciones, tendencias particularmente prometedoras para futuros estudios. El artı́culo termina
con la conclusión de que la contribución acumulada de Annals para el avance en métodos de investigación,
modelos y SIG en los pasados 100 años es enorme. Desde la reestructuración de Annals en cuatro secciones en el
2001, la Sección de Métodos, Modelos y SIG ha jugado un papel fundamental en el incremento significativo de
la proporción de trabajjos sobre métodos en la revista, invirtiendo una tendencia de descenso que habı́a operado
desde los años 1970. Palabras clave: ciencia de la información geográfica, métodos geográficos, modelos, MMSIG.

S
ince the first issue of the Annals of the Asso- the advancement of methods, models, and geographic
ciation of American Geographers was published information systems (MMGIS) from 1911 to 2010. It
in 1911, geographers have made great strides identifies prominent themes in articles in these areas
in developing and publishing innovative methods. published in the Annals to date and highlights research
Geographic method has evolved from a concern with directions that are particularly promising for future
the collection and mapping of geographic data to development.
a vast array of analytical techniques. The journal Assessing the cumulative contribution of the Annals
has been and still is one of the premier outlets for to the advancement of MMGIS, however, is far from
method-oriented papers. As part of this forum, which straightforward. About 5,000 items, including book re-
celebrates the 100th volume of the Annals, this article views and commentaries, have been published in the
reviews the cumulative contribution of this journal to journal since 1911. An exhaustive reading of all these
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(5) 2010, pp. 1060–1075

C 2010 by Association of American Geographers
Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.
 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the Annals
items to identify the MMGIS contributions is not
feasible, let alone evaluating the nature of the con-
tribution (as a wide variety of themes and methods
were covered). Further, all research articles necessar-
ily involve the use of some data and methods, and
the boundary between method-oriented articles and
other kinds of articles is highly elusive. Since the or-
ganization of the journal into four sections in 2001,
with one section designated for works that focus on
MMGIS, deciding which papers are method oriented
has become less daunting (although not necessarily less
problematic). For papers published before 2001, how-
ever, there is no simple means for identifying which
sought to contribute primarily to advancing geographic
method.
A major challenge is thus to decide which of the
5,000 items published in the journal from 1911 to 2010
should be included in this review and what method can
be used to accomplish this task. As the current editor of
the MMGIS section of the Annals and commissioned
to make this retrospective assessment, I would like to
highlight several caveats before presenting my review.
In light of the limited number of papers I could cover
in my analysis, this review is necessarily very selective
and partial. It is based on a sample of all the papers and
should be treated as a very rough portrait of the method-
oriented works published in the journal over the past
century. Further, because of the specific purpose of this
article, my review only evaluates the contribution of
this journal to advancing research in MMGIS. It con-
siders only the articles published in the Annals and thus
ignores many important contributions published else-
where. My analysis presented in this article therefore
by no means reflects the whole picture of the develop-
ment of MMGIS over the past 100 years. Further, the
term method is used in this article to refer to the kinds
of work that would likely be included in the MMGIS
section of the Annals if they were published today. The
term is thus a convenient acronym with a much broader
connotation than it might seem. It refers to a wide va-
riety of works that fit the section title of “methods,
models, and GIS,” including studies that advance both
theories and substantive knowledge in geography and
GIScience. Its use does not imply that model or theory
is a subset of method.
Data and Method
To undertake this review I drew on two data sources.
One is an Endnote bibliographic database containing
1061
all items published in the Annals from 1911 (Volume 1)
to 2008 (up to Volume 98, Issue 1). Information on each
item in this database includes author(s), title, publica-
tion date, volume and issue number, abstract, and type
of article (e.g., book review). The database has 4,756
entries, including commentaries and book reviews. To
extend this database up to the last issue of 2009 (Vol-
ume 99, Issue 5) for my analysis, data for twenty-one
method-oriented articles published from Volume 98
Issue 2 to Volume 99 Issue 5 were added to the database
manually. This led to an Endnote database with 4,777
entries. The other data source I drew on is the ISI Ci-
tation Database provided by Thomson Reuters of the
Annals for the period from 1965 to 2009. This database
provides information about the times each article pub-
lished during the forty-five-year period was cited to date.
Because it was not feasible to read all of the 4,777 en-
tries in the Endnote database, a method for searching
the database to identify method-oriented articles was
developed. For this review, I used a search procedure
to create a subset of all the bibliographic entries in the
Endnote database with the following considerations.
First, because editors of other sections of the Annals are
also contributing to this centennial assessment, articles
that would more likely fall within the scope of their
sections if they were published today were excluded.
Second, although it is often difficult to identify the na-
ture of an article’s contribution simply by reading its
title, the titles of method-oriented articles would likely
include some words that indicate their focus or emphasis
on MMGIS (e.g., GIS, using, map, model, or method).
A list of method-related words can thus be used to iden-
tify most of the method-oriented papers in the journal.
Finally, only main articles are considered in this anal-
ysis. Other items such as book reviews, commentaries,
and plates were excluded.
Based on these considerations, I used the following
search procedure to identify which of the 4,777 entries
in the Endnote database are method-oriented articles.
It began with compiling a list of method-related search
words based on various sources, including the Interna-
tional Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Kitchin and
Thrift 2009) and Key Methods in Geography (Clifford
and Valentine 2003). These words, drawn from both
quantitative and qualitative methodologies, were then
used to select entries from the bibliographic database
using the search function of Endnote. An entry would
be selected if its title includes one or more of the
search words.1 The search words that occurred most
frequently are listed in Table 1. Many other words were
also considered but were not used in the search process
1062 Kwan

Table 1. The most frequently occurring search words in article titles

Search word Times used Earliest use Most recent use Examples of usage in article titles

map 127 1925 2009 map projections, mapping, choropleth maps

spatial 123 1957 2007 geospatial, spatial behavior, spatial choice, spatial analysis
analysis 54 1953 2009 network analysis, cluster analysis, Markov chain analysis
method 46 1924 2009 expansion method, Bayesian methods, methodology
location 43 1927 2002 location theory, location-allocation, residential relocation
model 43 1960 2009 gravity model, catastrophe model, regression models
pattern 42 1947 2009 settlement patterns, land-use pattern, point pattern analysis
structure 22 1955 2007 spatial structure, residential structure, urban structure
system 22 1965 2009 city systems, flow systems, geographical information systems, urban
systems, regional systems
theory 22 1948 2009 location theory, migration theory, trade theory
use or using 22 1955 2009 using evolutionary algorithms, using GIS
science 21 1926 2008 GIScience, geographical science, land change science
cartograph 20 1947 2009 cartography, cartographic analysis, history of cartography
behavior 18 1966 2005 choice behavior, spatial behavior, travel behavior, shopping behavior,
voting behavior, consumer behavior
information 18 1967 2009 geographic information, information flows, information access,
information technology
data 16 1927 2009 database, panel data, data model, epidemiological data
diffusion 16 1970 2005 spatial diffusion, diffusion model
dynamic 16 1961 2006 rural dynamics, regional dynamics, dynamic model
flow 16 1944 2005 migrant flows, freight flows, information flows
statistic 16 1935 2002 offence statistics, statistical maps, neighbor statistics
GIS 13 1997 2009 GIScience, participatory GIS, critical GIS
projection 12 1925 2009 map projections, isometric projection
survey 12 1924 2008 survey methods, land survey
law 11 1923 2004 laws in geography, migration laws
based 10 1995 2009 cell-based, route-based knowledge, field-based theory
network 10 1969 2006 transport network, social network, neural network
representation 10 1968 2007 object-oriented representation, surface representation
visual 9 1972 2009 visualization, geovisualization, visual analytics
compute 8 1969 2009 computation, geocomputation, computing
distance 8 1944 2002 distance decay, effects of distance, relational distances
segregation 7 1973 2007 ethnic segregation, residential segregation
digital 6 1986 2002 digital elevation model, digital age
neighborhood 6 1984 2007 neighborhood contingency
quantitative 6 1957 2009 quantitative analysis, quantitative approach
simulate 6 1988 2007 simulate, simulating, simulation
decision 5 1964 2006 decision support
indices or index 5 1963 2008 indices for graphs, cultural index, environmental vulnerability index,
location index
learning 5 1971 2003 geographic learning, map learning, route learning
series 5 1961 2002 time series

GIS = geographic information system.

because they were not found in the titles of the biblio-
graphic entries.
This search procedure yielded a subset of 613 articles
(about 12 percent of all the entries) from the Endnote
bibliographic data. Entries in this initial subset that
are nonmethod oriented or are more appropriate for
other Annals sections were subsequently eliminated.
This slightly smaller subset of articles was the basis
of the following analysis. Quantitative analysis on
the historical trends of method papers in the journal
was performed using this subset of bibliographic
data. The results are reported in the next section.
In addition, I conducted a content analysis on the
articles included in the subset. The results are reported
in a subsequent section. The digital version of all
included articles was accessed via the Association of
American Geographers (AAG) Web site in April
2010.
 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the Annals
Method-Oriented Contributions in the
Annals: 1911–2010
Based on the smaller subset of bibliographic entries,
the earliest occurrence of a method-oriented word in ar-
ticle titles was law (Table 1). It was used in the titles of
two articles by Visher (1923a, 1923b), which sought to
identify laws similar to laws of other sciences that gov-
ern the geographic distribution of temperature, winds,
and moisture over the earth. It is intriguing that geog-
raphy was conceived as a scientific pursuit comparable
to other (physical) sciences at such an early time of
the journal. It is also surprising that, despite the fervor
associated with the quantitative revolution, the word
law was used only once in the 1960s and 1970s in the
title of Golledge and Amedeo (1968), who argued that
geographers can discover five types of laws based on
the spatial relationships among geographic phenom-
ena. Other method words that were used as early as
the 1920s in article titles include method, map, location,
survey, and projection. Perhaps unsurprisingly, method
words like spatial, analysis, and model were not used in
article titles until the 1950s.
In terms of the number of articles published per year,
the representation of method-oriented scholarship in
the Annals varied considerably over the past century
(Figure 1). For the first three decades from the 1920s,
the number of method papers in the journal remained
relatively low (about 1.8 papers a year). The 1950s and
1960s witnessed a significant increase in method papers,
Figure 1. The number and proportion
of method papers in the Annals, 1920s–
2000s.
1063
which peaked at 10.6 papers per year for the 1960s.
This dramatic growth in method-oriented contribu-
tions in the Annals around the mid-twentieth century
corresponded well with the timing of the quantitative
revolution, suggesting that it was the main factor un-
derlying the significant surge in method-oriented work
(Lavalle, McConnell, and Brown 1967). The doldrums
in method articles in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—
when the number of method papers did not increase
and remained at slightly lower levels of about nine
per year—on the other hand, were associated with the
ascendance and increasing influence of critical geogra-
phies. The 2000s witnessed another dramatic increase
in method papers in the journal (15.9 articles per year,
which represents a 44 percent increase when compared
to the previous decade). The organization of the Annals
into four sections in 2001, with one section designated
for method-oriented work, did seem to be a pivotal
factor leading to the considerable increase of method
articles in the journal in the past decade.
The proportion of method articles in the Annals
reveals a somewhat similar story (Figure 1). The
proportion of method papers among all Annals articles
was actually quite high in the 1920s (16.7 percent) and
comparable to the level in the 1950s (15.3 percent).
The proportion dropped to about 9 percent in the
1930s and 1940s and then almost recovered its 1920s
level again in the 1950s. It peaked in the 1960s at 22.2
percent, which was the highest proportion of method
contributions in the entire history of the Annals. This
1064 Kwan

Table 2. Most frequently cited method papers in the Annals, 1965–2000

Author(s) Year Article title

Rushton 1969 Analysis of spatial behavior by revealed space preference

Fotheringham 1981 Spatial structure and distance-decay parameters
Peuquet 1994 It’s about time—A conceptual framework for the representation of
temporal dynamics in geographic information systems
Goodchild and Mark 1987 The fractal nature of geographic phenomena
G. L. Clark 1998 Stylized facts and close dialogue: Methodology in economic geography
Cutter, Mitchell, and Scott 2000 Revealing the vulnerability of people and places: A case study of
Georgetown County, South Carolina
Morrill and Pitts 1967 Marriage, migration, and mean information field—Study in
uniqueness and generality
Janelle 1969 Spatial reorganization—Model and concept
Sinclair 1967 Von Thunen and urban sprawl
Jenks and Caspall 1971 Error on choroplethic maps—Definition, measurement, reduction
Sparke 1998 A map that roared and an original atlas: Canada, cartography, and the
narration of nation
R. Lloyd 1989 Cognitive maps—Encoding and decoding information
Bunting and Guelke 1979 Behavioral and perception geography—Critical appraisal
L. A. Brown and Longbrake 1970 Migration flows in intraurban space—Place utility considerations
Hudson 1969 Location theory for rural settlement
Grigg 1965 The logic of regional systems
Blaut and Stea 1971 Studies of geographic learning
Roseman 1971 Migration as a spatial and temporal process
Malanson 1999 Considering complexity
Montello et al. 1999 Sex-related differences and similarities in geographic and
environmental spatial abilities

Source: Data gathered from ISI Citation Database on 2 April 2010.

indicates that both the number and proportion of
method articles in the journal peaked together under
the influence of the quantitative revolution. The next
decade witnessed a significant drop of the proportion
of method papers to 8.6 percent. In the two decades
that followed (the 1980s and 1990s), the proportion
of method articles remained at about 10 percent,
comparable to the levels in the 1930s and 1940s. The
proportion of method articles in the Annals jumped
to 20 percent in the 2000s, indicating again the effect
of restructuring the journal into four sections in 2001
and perhaps a renewed interest in methods and models
associated with the “geospatial revolution.”
The Annals has published many influential articles in
MMGIS that inspired authors of subsequent method-
oriented papers. Some interesting observations can also
be made regarding the most frequently cited method
articles in the Annals. For the entire forty-five-year pe-
riod (1965–2009) with citation data, about one-tenth
of the fifty most frequently cited articles in the Annals
are method-oriented contributions, with Parker et al.
(2003) being the fifth most cited article. Among the
most frequently cited method articles in the period
before the restructuring of the Annals into four sections
(1965–2000), several distinctive clusters can be identi-
fied (Table 2). These are (1) location theory and spatial
modeling (Grigg 1965; Sinclair 1967; Hudson 1969;
Janelle 1969; Fotheringham 1981); (2) behavioral
geography (Rushton 1969; Blaut and Stea 1971;
Bunting and Guelke 1979; R. Lloyd 1989; Montello et
al. 1999); (3) migration studies (Morrill and Pitts 1967;
L. A. Brown and Longbrake 1970; Roseman 1971); and
(4) early contributions by GIScientists (Goodchild
and Mark 1987; Peuquet 1994). Among these most
cited papers, Malanson (1999) and Sparke (1998)
are also important precursors of later contributions in
 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the Annals 1065

Table 3. Most frequently cited Methods, Models, and GIS articles, 2001–2009

Author(s) Year Article title

Parker et al. 2003 Multi-agent systems for the simulation of land-use and land-cover change: A review
Kwan 2002 Feminist visualization: Re-envisioning GIS as a method in feminist geographic research
Fabrikant and Buttenfield 2001 Formalizing semantic spaces for information access
Pattie and Johnston 2000 “People who talk together vote together”: An exploration of contextual effects in Great Britain
Sieber 2006 Public participation geographic information systems: A literature review and framework
Torrens 2006 Simulating sprawl
Johnston, Poulsen, and Forrest 2007 The geography of ethnic residential segregation: A comparative study of five countries
Schuurman 2006 Formalization matters: Critical GIS and ontology research
Zook and Brunn 2006 From podes to antipodes: Positionalities and global airline geographies
M. Brown and Knopp 2008 Queering the map: The productive tensions of colliding epistemologies
Xu et al. 2006 A spatial-temporal model for assessing the effects of intervillage connectivity in schistosomiasis
transmission
Shoval and Isaacson 2007 Sequence alignment as a method for human activity analysis in space and time
Xie, Batty, and Zhao 2007 Simulating emergent urban form using agent-based modeling: Desakota in the Suzhou-Wuxian
region in China

Source: Data gathered from ISI Citation Database on 2 April 2010. GIS = geographic information system.

agent-based modeling and critical cartography in the
journal.
For the period from 2001 to 2009, several arti-
cles in GIScience and critical GIS featured promi-
nently among the most cited Annals articles (Table 3).
These include Fabrikant and Buttenfield (2001), Kwan
(2002), Schuurman (2006), Sieber (2006), and M.
Brown and Knopp (2008). Agent-based modeling and
spatio-temporal modeling also emerged as important
themes among the most frequently cited Annals articles.
Parker et al. (2003), Torrens (2006), and Xie, Batty,
and Zhao (2007) belong to the first group, and Xu et al.
(2006) and Shoval and Isaacson (2007) belong to the
second. When compared to the 1965 to 2000 period,
more of the most cited method articles were contributed
by women (40 percent) or minority geographers (23 per-
cent) as sole or lead authors. This seems to suggest that
influential articles on geographic method in the past
decade or so were contributed by an increasingly diver-
sified constituency, a trend that was encouraged by the
emphasis of the AAG on diversity. Further, there was a
considerable increase in articles involving two or more
authors when compared to the 1965 to 2000 period,
as their share of the most cited papers increased from
35 percent to 70 percent. Indeed, among the thirteen
most cited articles in 2001 to 2009 listed in Table 3, five
have three or more authors. Method-oriented work, and
perhaps geographic research at large, has shifted from
the single-investigator model to joint endeavors and
multidisciplinary collaborations.
Prominent Method Themes in the Annals:
1911–2010
The Annals has published many articles in MMGIS
that shaped the development and direction of the dis-
cipline in significant ways. Sauer (1924), for instance,
argued that the purpose of geography was to chart
distributions and to explain them, and the development
of a distinctive geographic technique differentiates ge-
ography from other social sciences. Few Annals arti-
cles, however, were as influential as the debate between
Hartshorne and Schaefer in shaping the methodolog-
ical direction of geography. Hartshorne (1939, 1958)
explored the history of the concept of geography as a
science of space from Kant and von Humbolt to Het-
tner. He argued that geography was the study of areal
differentiation and methods useful to the task of areal
differentiation should be developed. Schaefer (1953),
in an acrimonious rejoinder of Hartshorne’s exception-
alist view, argued that geography was just like other
sciences and thus did not need to develop special meth-
ods. Instead geography should, as all science does, share
the same methodology based on identifying universal
laws in the phenomena it studies, and in geography
this means finding the laws of spatial distributions. His
Annals article seemed pivotal in the emergence of the
quantitative revolution and spatial science. It had in-
spired many subsequent contributions in the journal in
such areas as spatial association, spatial pattern analy-
sis, spatial diffusion, and optimizing spatial patterns, as
1066
articles on the subject of areal differentiation and re-
gional geography in the journal dwindled.
In terms of thematic or topical interests, promi-
nent methodological areas in which Annals arti-
cles have contributed include (1) mapping and
cartography; (2) spatial analysis, modeling, and
statistics; and (3) GIScience, critical GIS, and critical
cartography.
Mapping and Cartography
Over the past century, many important contribu-
tions to mapping and cartographic methods were pub-
lished in the journal. The search procedure used in this
study identified map (including mapping) as the most
frequently used method-related word in article titles
(Table 1). Together with another related search word
cartograph (as in cartography and cartographic), papers
with a focus on mapping and cartographic methods ac-
count for almost a quarter of all the method-oriented
papers in the subset created by the search procedure.
Both map and cartograph remain frequently used words
in paper titles through 2009 (Table 1), indicating that
maps, mapping, and cartography are central concerns
in the entire history of the discipline.
Some of the early papers on mapping methods in the
journal focused on charting the geographic distribution
of environmental elements: temperature, storms, land-
form, soil, slope, and vegetation (e.g., McMurry 1926).
They aimed at showing how these physical character-
istics varied over the Earth’s surface. Another focus of
early papers on mapping in the journal is the creation of
maps that described various aspects of agricultural areas
(e.g., crops, pasture, and livestock), as well as popula-
tion distribution in urban and rural areas (e.g., Whit-
tlesey 1925; Mather 1944). In these early studies, field
methods and observations were used to collect quantita-
tive data that were later presented through cartographic
means (e.g., dot maps, ratios maps, and isopleth maps).
The purposes were mainly to depict where things are
and to highlight their relationships through examining
their geographic patterns.
Papers published in the journal since the 1960s pre-
sented more sophisticated mapping methods (Tobler
2004). They used statistical techniques to combine sev-
eral quantitative indexes or to generate statistical maps
for various analytical purposes (e.g., Schwartzberg 1962;
G. Robinson and Fairbairn 1969; Eyton 1984). R. W.
Armstrong (1969), for instance, used the standard devi-
ation of areal mortality rates to establish class intervals
for mapping. The study found that using standardized
Kwan
class intervals reduces bias and error in map interpreta-
tion. The Annals remains an important outlet for papers
on innovative mapping methods today. Some recent
contributions in this area include: M. P. Armstrong,
Xiao, and Bennett (2003), which used genetic algo-
rithms to create multicriteria class intervals for choro-
pleth maps; and S.-J. Lee, Balling, and Gober (2008),
which applied Bayesian maximum entropy mapping to
overcome the problem posed by soft data in urban cli-
mate research.
Accurately representing the earth’s curved surface
and its features on flat maps has been a concern for
many papers in the journal since its early days. These
articles examined the properties of map projections, as
well as ways to detect and rectify map distortions and
errors (e.g., Goode 1925; A. H. Robinson 1949, 1951;
Tobler 1966; C. D. Lloyd and Lilley 2009). Another
area that many Annals articles have contributed to is
the effect of various cartographic elements in commu-
nicating information. These papers examined how the
use of various elements of map design, such as color, map
symbols, visual organization, and animation, affects
the acquisition of accurate information by map readers
(e.g., Olson 1975, 1981; Monmonier 1978; MacEachren
1982; Brewer and MacEachren 1997; Lobben 2008).
Olson and Brewer (1997), for instance, evaluated the
use of colors to represent various elements of data for
map users with color-vision impairments. Griffin et al.
(2006) compared the effectiveness of animated maps
with static small-multiple maps and found that map
readers answer more quickly and identify more patterns
correctly when using animated maps than when using
static small-multiple maps.
Method papers published in the Annals have also
advanced our understanding of people’s ability to use
maps, learn about spatial relations and properties, and
acquire spatial knowledge (e.g., Tuan 1975; R. Lloyd
and Heivly 1987; MacEachren 1992; Golledge and
Dougherty 1995; Blaut et al. 2003; Lobben 2007;
Marsh, Golledge, and Battersby 2007; Battersby and
Montello 2009). They addressed topics like spatial
learning, spatial abilities, mapping abilities, and cog-
nitive maps. R. Lloyd (1989), for instance, examined
the encoding processes and distortions in the cogni-
tive maps formed through direct experience or a map.
Marsh, Golledge, and Battersby (2007) found signifi-
cant differences in geospatial concept recognition, un-
derstanding, and use among grade-based participants.
These studies provide important insights on geospa-
tial learning and help inform strategies in geographic
education.
 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the Annals
Spatial Analysis, Modeling, and Statistics
Another area to which method articles in the Annals
have contributed in the past century can be broadly
called spatial analysis, spatial models, and spatial statis-
tics. These articles covered a wide spectrum of topics.
Early papers focused mainly on the analysis of the spa-
tial structure and patterns of various geographic phe-
nomena: the economy, rural and urban settlements, as
well as agricultural and manufacturing activities (e.g.,
Garrison and Marble 1957; King 1961, 1967; Morrill
1963; Johnston 1966; Jakle and Wheeler 1969). These
papers were designed to contribute to the development
of classical location theories by relaxing some of the lim-
itations in their behavioral foundations. Another area
to which early papers in the journal had contributed in
important ways was the analysis of stochastic processes
of point patterns and the spatial economy (e.g., Curry
1964; Dacey 1964, 1966).
Several distinct themes can be identified among
Annals papers published since 1960 under the broad
category of spatial analysis and modeling. One of these
themes is the analysis of spatial behavior and spatial
decision making (e.g., W. A. V. Clark 1968; Cox
1968; Kasperson 1969; Rushton 1969; Bourne 1976;
Mulligan 1984; Couclelis 1986; J. O. Huff 1986). A
significant and highly influential article in this area is by
Wolpert (1964), who argued for the necessity to relax
assumptions of economic rationality to interpret spatial
variations in labor productivity. He emphasized that
individuals did not always achieve profit maximization,
nor did they have perfect knowledge to accomplish
the goal. Wolpert proposed the concept of the spatial
satisfier, who is intendedly rational rather than om-
nisciently rational, as a more appropriate notion for
understanding spatial behavior and decisions.
Analysis of flows and movements, including network
analysis and spatial interaction models, is another
prominent spatial analysis theme identifiable among
Annals articles (e.g., Wolpert 1967; D. L. Huff and
Jenks 1968; Sheppard 1979; Fotheringham 1981;
McLafferty 1982; Plane 1984; Knudsen 1985; Wheeler
and Mitchelson 1989; Mitchelson and Wheeler 1994).
Griffith (1982), for instance, analyzed the relationship
between regional and local shape geometry associated
with spatial interaction and observed no relationship
between them. Using a spatial optimization model,
Grubesic and Murray (2006) explored the topological
complexities associated with network interconnec-
tions and evaluated the potential impacts of losing
1067
critical infrastructure elements that are geographically
linked.
Many method articles in the Annals have contributed
to the analysis of change over space and time. These in-
clude papers on spatial diffusion, spatio-temporal anal-
ysis, and dynamic modeling (e.g., Rogers and Miller
1967; Demko and Casetti 1970; L. A. Brown and Cox
1971; Casetti and Jones 1987; Shannon and Pyle 1989;
Loytonen 1991; O’Loughlin et al. 1998; Smallman-
Raynor and Cliff 2001). Among these studies, W. A. V.
Clark (1965) analyzed the movements of average rents
over time for central city rental housing using Markov
chains. Casetti (1981) used a catastrophe model to an-
alyze the shifts of regional economies from growth to
decline. More recently, An and Brown (2008) applied
survival analysis to land change modeling and found
that survival analysis can effectively shed light on the
temporal patterns of land changes.
Spatial regression and statistical models, such as
spatially autoregressive models and geographically
weighted regression, is another area to which method
articles in the Annals have contributed (e.g., Haining
1978, 1982; Ceccato, Haining, and Signoretta 2002;
Ceccato and Haining 2004; Griffith 2005). Using spa-
tially autoregressive models, O’Loughlin (1986), for in-
stance, examined the effect of location on war behavior
and found that wars tend to cluster spatially. Mennis
and Jordan (2005) used geographically weighted regres-
sion to analyze the density of air toxic releases in New
Jersey. The study found that the relationships among
class, race, employment, urban concentration, and land
use with air toxic release density varied significantly
over space.
Among recent contributions to spatial analysis and
modeling in the Annals, several clusters of papers can
be identified: (1) complexity theory, agent-based mod-
eling, and geosimulation (e.g., Parker et al. 2003; An
et al. 2005; Torrens 2006; Xie, Batty, and Zhao 2007;
Shi 2009); (2) genetic and evolutionary algorithms
(e.g., Bennett, Xiao, and Armstrong 2004; Xiao 2008;
Tong, Murray, and Xiao 2009); (3) location-allocation
models, covering models, and spatial optimization
models (e.g., Church, Scaparra, and Middleton 2004;
Murray 2005; Yasenovskiy and Hodgson 2007); and
(4) analysis of remotely sensed data (e.g., Lo 2002;
Pontius et al. 2007; Witmer and O’Loughlin 2009;
Wu et al. 2009). There are many other method
contributions that cannot be placed into the areas of
research just discussed. Among them is Mu and Wang’s
(2008) study that developed a modified scale-space
1068
clustering method for constructing geographic areas
with sufficiently large base population to mitigate
the small population problem. The method can also
mitigate the modifiable areal unit problem when
analyzing zone-based data and reduce model errors in
ordinary least squares regression.
GIScience, Critical GIS, and Critical Cartography
The third broad area to which method papers in the
Annals have contributed is GIScience, critical GIS,
and critical cartography. This is a relatively recent
development when compared to research on mapping
and cartography and spatial analysis and modeling.
The article by Goodchild and Mark (1987) on the
fractal nature of geographic phenomena and Peuquet’s
(1988) paper on representations of geographic space
were important early contributions in this area. Both
dealt with important issues of representing geographic
space and phenomena in digital form. Goodchild and
Mark (1987) explored the relevance of fractals to
geography with respect to cartographic generalizations,
self-similarity in geomorphic surfaces, and the recursive
subdivision of space. They suggested that fractals can
be an effective means for representing spatial data in
digital form, and the notion of fractals represents a
significant change in conventional ways of thinking
about spatial forms. Several subsequent Annals articles
continued to contribute to the problem of geographic
representation (e.g., Peuquet 1994; Miller and Wentz
2003; Bian 2007; Miller and Bridwell 2009). New issues
like formalization, ontology, semantics, and whether
GIS should be considered a tool or science were also
addressed (e.g., Wright, Goodchild, and Proctor 1997;
Fabrikant and Buttenfield 2001; Schuurman 2006).
Several recent Annals articles sought to advance
our understanding of issues pertinent to public partic-
ipation GIS and collaborative decision making (e.g.,
Kyem 2004; Bailey and Grossardt 2010). For instance,
Jankowski and Nyerges (2001) and Nyerges et al. (2006)
examined the sociobehavioral dynamics of GIS use
in group-based collaborative decision making using
human–computer interaction experiments. Based on a
case study of natural resource management in western
Oregon, Wright, Duncan, and Lach (2009) suggested
that the introduction of GIS into the public participa-
tion process blurs the boundaries between science and
nonscience and could lend a degree of social power to
nonscientists in the form of providing improved access
to data and maps and perhaps even the power to influ-
ence policy and management decisions.
Kwan
Several Annals articles sought to provide new insights
on GIS at the intersection of critical geographies, so-
cial theory, and GIS. For instance, in Kwan (2002) I
argued that GIS can be reenvisioned and used in fem-
inist geography in ways that are congenial to feminist
epistemologies and politics. These alternative practices
represent a new kind of critical engagement with GIS
that is grounded on the critical agency of the GIS user
or researcher. Working at the intersection of GIS and
queer geography and drawing on their own experience
in using GIS in an action-research project, M. Brown
and Knopp (2008) highlighted the productive tensions
of the colliding epistemologies of queer theory and ac-
tivism and GIS technologies. They argued that GIS can
be an integral part of a politics of uncloseting urban (and
other) spaces that are otherwise heteronormatively rep-
resented and imagined.
There is also an important cluster of papers that ad-
dress the problematic nature of geopolitical mapping
and GIS technologies (e.g., Woodward 1985; Harley
1992; Forest 2001; Kirsch 2002; Cosgrove and della
Dora 2005; Cosgrove 2007). Seeking to contribute to re-
cent debates about the geography of power, the nation-
state, cartographic history, and postcolonial theory,
Sparke (1998), for instance, explored the mapping of
the nation-state through two case studies from contem-
porary Canada. He suggested that (post)colonial power
relations of cartography can work both for and against
colonialism, and colonial assumptions about cartogra-
phy can persist to the present. Hoeschele (2000) ex-
amined how a state agency in India used GIS as an
instrument of power over those people who have little
or no access to the technology. Its GIS analysis greatly
overstated the amount of wastelands and consequently
minimized the productive roles of peasants and tribals
in managing the land.
Looking Forward
As this review indicates, the cumulative contribution
of the Annals to advancing geographic method over the
past century is enormous, even as the number and pro-
portion of method papers have varied considerably over
time. There has been great diversity in research themes
and theoretical perspectives within each of the three
broad research areas reviewed in this article. These ar-
ticles also included some of the most innovative and in-
fluential method contributions in the discipline to date.
Since the restructuring of the Annals into four sections
in 2001, the MMGIS section has served a pivotal role
 A Century of Method-Oriented Scholarship in the Annals
in significantly increasing the proportion of method-
oriented papers published in the journal, reversing a
trend that had been in place since the 1970s. With an
emphasis on diversity and openness, the MMGIS sec-
tion of the journal will continue to serve as a premier
outlet for the best scholarship in geographic method
in the years to come. Several areas of method-oriented
research are particularly promising for future research.
Many phenomena of interest to geographers, such
as urban growth and land-use and land-cover change,
involve a vast number of entities that interact through
highly complex processes in space and time. Agent-
based modeling and geosimulation are powerful tools for
exploring the spatio-temporal dynamics of these com-
plex systems (Parker et al. 2003). They are capable of
taking complex interdependencies and feedbacks into
account, integrating data and behaviors at multiple spa-
tial and temporal scales, quantifying and representing
the uncertainties entailed in the data, and utilizing in-
tensive computation to reduce the reliance on statistical
assumptions (An et al. 2005; Torrens 2006; Xie, Batty,
and Zhao 2007; Shi 2009). Agent-based modeling and
geosimulation thus hold great promise for creative work
in many areas of concern to geographers.
In light of recent calls to reconnect quantitative
and critical geographies, hybrid geographies that seek
to transcend the social-cultural/spatial-analytical bi-
nary will be a promising direction for future method-
oriented research (Kwan 2004; Barnes 2009; Ellis 2009;
Goetz, Vowles, and Tierney 2009; Kwan and Schwa-
nen 2009a, 2009b; Wyly 2009; Zolnik 2009). Method-
oriented studies in the future would also need to be
more attentive to difference among places and individ-
uals and the effect of geographic context. Methods such
as local forms of spatial analysis (e.g., local statistics and
geographically weighted regression), multilevel models,
and hierarchical models are especially promising tools
for undertaking these studies (e.g., Bakke, O’Loughlin,
and Ward 2009; Chakraborty 2009). Instead of mak-
ing sweeping generalizations of an entire study area or
population, these methods help reveal the effect of local
context on individual experiences, social processes, and
their spatial outcomes. They thus help address certain
limitations of conventional quantitative approaches.
There is also considerable potential for innovative
work that draws on various notions of networks to de-
cipher the sociospatial configuration of movements of
people, goods, and information, social interactions and
relations, as well as circuits of power and control (e.g.,
Rowe and Wolch 1990; Urry 2004; Smith 2005; Kwan
2007). The study by Radil, Flint, and Tita (2010), for
1069
instance, used social network analysis to examine so-
ciospatial relations between territorially based criminal
street gangs and the location of gang-related violence.
Steinberg (2009) argued that one must trace the acts
of movement that occur within, across, and outside a
territory’s boundaries and the designation of specific
spaces of movement as beyond territorial control to
understand the history of a territorial entity. Although
network analysis or notions are not entirely new to geog-
raphy, studies like these challenge the conventional no-
tion that places and regions are stable entities, whereas
movements are transient and analytically unimportant
(Sheller and Urry 2006). They highlight the fact that
all places are connected by networks of movements and
flows, and in contemporary social life, we are embedded
in complex and multilayered social networks that might
intersect or overlap (Wellman 2001; Wittel 2001; Urry
2003). There are ample opportunities for creative work
that draws on this relational understanding of places,
movements, and mobilities.
Significant progress has been made in many areas in
geographic information systems and science in the past
fifteen years or so. These include (1) positioning, data
acquisition, and data dissemination technologies; (2)
theories of representation; (3) analysis of uncertainty;
and (4) analysis of spatial dependence and nonstation-
arity (Goodchild 2009a). Many areas in GIScience and
critical GIS have attracted considerable attention in
recent years, and work in these areas has tremendous
potential to make important contributions to geogra-
phy. Among them are promising works that explore
the intersection of GIS, qualitative methodologies, and
critical geographies (e.g., Kwan 2007; M. Brown and
Knopp 2008; Kwan and Ding 2008). Studies on public
participation GIS and collaborative decision making
will continue to shed light on issues pertinent to the
use of GIS and geographic information in public deci-
sion making (e.g., Bailey and Grossardt 2010). Research
on positioning technologies, data acquisition, data dis-
semination, and representation of the third spatial di-
mension (e.g., internal structures of buildings) might
also be particularly fruitful (e.g., Goodchild, Fu, and
Rich 2007; J. Lee 2007; Shoval and Isaacson 2007).
Geographers and GIScientists have also begun to
investigate the impact and implications of volunteered
geographic information (e.g., Haklay, Singleton, and
Parker 2008; Goodchild 2009b). This new form of
geographic information refers to user-generated Web
content created via a vast array of means for collecting,
disseminating, sharing, using, and modifying geo-
graphic information (e.g., Google Earth mashups and
1070
OpenStreetMap). As people can now geotag photos or
annotate geographic features using various Web-based
mapping interfaces, the ways in which geographic
knowledge is produced, acquired, or used by people
could undergo significant change. On one hand, the
massive amount of volunteered geographic information
on the Web offers ample opportunities for research on
a wide variety of new topics of interest to geographers
(e.g., Zook and Graham 2007), and this will have
profound implications for the future development of
geographic method. For instance, what methods or
analytical tools can be used to integrate or analyze this
kind of information? How can data quality, reliability,
and accuracy of this information be assessed in light
of the rigorous standards of scientific research? How
to evaluate the extent to which various social groups
are represented in the data compiled from volunteered
information on the Web? On the other hand, the
creation and use of volunteered geographic information
might not only shape the production and acquisition
of geographic knowledge, they might also influence
human behavior socially, politically, and spatially.
What conceptual and analytical apparatus is suitable
for deciphering the new sociospatial processes and
patterns engendered by this new form of geographic
knowledge? This might call for the development of
new conceptual frameworks and analytical techniques,
and this kind of work has considerable potential to
advance geographic method in the years to come.
The Annals has played a pivotal role in advancing
geographic research in the past century, and it will con-
tinue to play this important role. The mission of current
and future editors of the Annals is to make the journal “a
more representative, more balanced, more useful, and
more exciting window to the world of high-quality ge-
ographic research” (Golledge 1999, 319).
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Marie Price for editing this Forum
and her suggestions for improving this article. Thanks
to Audrey Kobayashi for providing the Endnote biblio-
graphic database used in the analysis. I would also like
to thank Larry Brown, Leslie King, Matthew Wilson,
and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful com-
ments. All omissions or errors of the article remain my
responsibility.
Note
1. Using these search words identified most but not all of
the methods-related articles in the journal. Because the
Kwan
procedure correctly identified over 90 percent of the
papers published in the MMGIS section for the period
from 2001 to 2010, it is a reasonably reliable method
for generating a substantial and representative subset of
all the method-oriented papers published to date in the
journal.
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