Production, Property, and the Construction of Remotely Sensed Data

Remote sensing, particularly satellite imaging, is widely used in scientific, government, and public applications. One of the reasons it is so highly valued is the perception of its fundamental objectivity and neutrality. Yet like all data, satellite imagery is a product of human action. Elements such as specific technologies, strategic priorities, and privileged interpretations influence the availability and applications of remotely sensed data. We therefore argue that careful examination of the epistemological, social, and political dimensions of these data is a crucial, yet relatively underdeveloped task, especially in the scientific literature. We conduct such an examination through the property regimes (or property rights regimes) framework developed by Schlager and Ostrom. Property regimes are the arrangements by which rights over particular goods are allocated, as well as the roles to which these rights are assigned and the rules that regulate this process. This framework is especially useful in revealing the large contextual variation in the production, use, and appropriation of particular goods, in this case remotely sensed data. Understanding remotely sensed data through the property regimes that govern them emphasizes the political and economic dimensions of this valuable resource and reveals its embeddedness in the world it intends to capture from afar. Thus, we show that to have a better grasp on the role of remotely sensed data in science, policy, and society, users must acknowledge the property regimes and other political interventions that are here shown to be indeed fundamental to their construction.