Abstract
Drones are increasingly becoming a ubiquitous feature of society. They are being used for a multiplicity of applications for military, leisure, economic, and academic purposes. Their application in academia, especially as social science research tools, has seen a sharp uptake in the last decade. This has been possible due, largely, to significant developments in computerization and miniaturization, which have culminated in safer, cheaper, lighter, and thus more accessible drones for social scientists. Despite their increasingly widespread use, there has not been an adequate reflection on their use in the spatial social sciences. There is need for a deeper reflection on their application in these fields of study. Should the drone even be considered a tool in the toolbox of the social scientist? In which fields is it most relevant? Should it be taught as a course in the social sciences much in the same way that spatially-oriented software packages have become mainstream in institutions of higher learning? What are the ethical implications of its application in spatial social science? This paper is a brief reflection on these questions. We contend that drones are a neutral tool which can be good and evil. They have actual and potentially wide applicability in academia but can be a tool through which breaches in ethics can be occasioned given their unique abilities to capture data from vantage perspectives. Researchers therefore need to be circumspect in how they deploy this powerful tool which is increasingly becoming mainstream in the social sciences.
Highlights
We focus the discussion on three main themes: teaching their use as a course in the social science faculties of universities, legislations governing their use across countries, and the ethical and political hurdles that need reflection in their application, in the social sciences
Drones can have important roles to play in mixed methods, especially in the areas of natural resource conservation, agriculture, tourism, among others
Given the unique capabilities of drones, there is the need for adequate ethical considerations when using them in research
Summary
One area that has begun seeing the increased application of drones in the last decade is academia In this regard, both the physical as well as the social sciences have found it to be a useful tool. Social scientists employ a range of tools and methods to collect data for their studies These methods range from experiments, surveys, interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), participant observations, life histories, and documentation analysis, among others. Are drones helping to bridge the gap, but they are offering new opportunities for collaborative research between human and physical geographers given that these two subdisciplines often approach the application of drones differently [3] In this conceptual paper, we aim to discuss the use of drones as social science research tools. These reflections are critical as drones continue to become mainstream tools in the toolbox of the social scientist
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