SECOA territories and conflicts: data dilemmas

The implementation of the principles of GIScience is strongly influenced by the definition of the phenomenon and the territory to be explored, the explanatory variables, and the availability of data. This chapter will deal with those issues: how the problems were placed in SECOA and which solutions have been adopted. The themes and topics characterizing SECOA are defined, and the variables chosen for analyzing, classifying, and modelling them are described. The themes characterizing SECOA are those connected to places and to conflicts. We first discuss place and territory followed by conflict and contrast. Then, SECOA places and conflicts are defined, and SECOA variables and data are presented.