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CALL FOR PAPERS: Association of American Geographers Meeting March 2001 in
New York
Organiser: Ted Kilian   [log in to unmask]

Is cyberspace space?  If so, what sort of space is it and how can
geographers contribute to understanding it?

I am organizing a session (or sessions?) to be sponsored by the World Wide
Web specialty group of the AAG for the New York AAG meeting on
Cybergeographies: The Contours of Cyberspace, which would focus on the
geography of the Internet and other information and communication
technologies.  

The last several years at the AAG meetings have seen an increase in the
number of papers employing geographical concepts to research on these sorts
of issues.  The proposed sessions would seek to bring these sorts of papers
and researchers together to address questions about the role of geography in
understanding these electronic spaces.    

My hope is that a broad collection of research could be organized into
several themes, grouped around the issues that arise from geographers
branching out into this "new territory."   Possible themes might include:

----Critiques of the idea of cyberspace as space (virtual and real space,
the production of cyberspace ) 

----Methodological issues of doing geographical research on cyberspace
(mapping cyberspace, ethics of cyberspace research, validity and reliability
issues of research online) 

----Geographical issues in cyberspace (geographies of IT infrastructure,
cyberspace as public space, spaces for online community, the uneven
development of cyberspace, political geographies of cyberspace, geographies
of electronic commerce)

----Case studies of cybergeography research 

If you are interested or have any questions or comments please don't
hesitate to contact me.  At this point I only need an expression of interest
and a topic rather than complete, formal abstracts.    I will ask for
abstracts from those who express any interest by August 1. 



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J Ted Kilian
School of the Environment
University of Brighton
Cockcroft Building
Lewes Road
Brighton BN2 4GJ
UK
tel:01273 643318 fax:01273 642285
[log in to unmask]
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