Call for papers
Software and Space
2007 Association of American Geographers Annual Conference.
17-21 April 2007, San Francisco, California, USA.
Session organisers:
* Martin Dodge, Geography, School of Environment and Development,
University of Manchester,
* Rob Kitchin, National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis
(NIRSA), National University of Ireland, Maynooth,
* Matthew Zook, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
Unpacking the automatic production of spaces
--------------------------------------------
Over the past thirty years, the practices of everyday life have become
increasingly infused with and mediated by software. Whatever the task -
domestic living, working, consuming, travelling or communicating -
software increasingly makes a difference to how everyday life takes place.
Software is embedded into objects and systems as a means to enhance and
manage usage and is pivotal in linking together disparate and distributed
infrastructures. It also enables new and refined processes through the
generation, storage, profiling, screening and communication of data about
individuals, objects, and transactions. Importantly, software has profound
spatial effects, both through the automatic production of space that
generates new spatialities (Thrift and French, 2002; Dodge and Kitchin,
2005a) and the creation of software-sorted (Graham, 2005) or machine
readable (Dodge and Kitchin, 2005b) geographies that alter the nature of
access and governmentality.
Given that the AAG meeting in 2007 will take place in the San Francisco
Bay the central node in the design and promulgation of software it seems
an apposite place to initiate a wider ranging discussion on the role of
software in the production of space. Building on previous research
concerned primarily with the disciplinary effects of software-enabled
technologies in the govermentality of spaces of transportation,
communication and consumption, these sessions aim to move beyond seeing
code solely as a force of control. Consequently, we seek papers examining
the productive capability of software to reformulate collective life and
enhance individual.s spatiality in creative, playful, empowering ways. We
seek papers that report empirically-informed analysis that unpack the
.automatic production of space. (Thrift and French, 2002) in terms of
people.s daily experience living within (and increasing living though)
coded environments. It is hoped that the sessions will draw together
researchers from Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Communications, Media
Studies and allied disciplines.
The goal of the sessions is, therefore, to conceptualize software through
its effects on space and social life at an individual level rather than
technical papers on particular software applications (e.g., work in
applied GIS) or economic geography analysis of the software industry.
Some possible themes
--------------------
We seek theoretically informed papers that can report empirical research
within the following broad themes:
# Code and Creativity: Software's ability to manipulate digital media is
crucial to the emergence of 'mash-ups' (ad-hoc combination and hybrid
re-use), 'modding' (informal user modifications to improve performance)
and 'remixability' (Manovich, 2005) that some herald as a new wave of
popular entertainment and decentred knowledge production. How and in what
ways does software enable new forms of individual creativity? How is
software making new spaces of play possible, new means of human expression
and facilitating new places for artistic and craft practices?
# Code and Memories: People are generally only vaguely aware of the extent
to which coded objects, systems and environments are becoming aware of
them, and increasingly capturing routine interactions and activity. What
might the folding together of biological memory, shared social memories
and externalised digital memories mean for day to day life? What benefits
might such augmented memory bring, would never forgetting events and
details be a welcome improvement to individual's lives?
# Code and Well-being: In what ways and to what degree might
software-enabled practices and spaces influence our well-being? Will more
continuous monitoring of health status via personalised software systems
be advantageous to well-being? Does the automation, flexibility and the
sense of a speeded-up world create new feelings of empowerment or fears of
powerlessness? How does software relate to the mind, body and spirit of
individuals in the so-called digital age?
# Code and Risks: The services and spaces of everyday living increasingly
depend on software to work. Most of the time software 'just works', yet
this dependency is creating many new risks for individuals, particularly
in terms of complexity, and the impact of unforeseen and hard to diagnose
and fix problems with software. This code complexity is also opening up
new means for criminal activity and malicious damage that can directly
impact individuals (such as computer viruses, phishing and identity
theft). How do people manage such risks, threats and fears?
# Code and Resistance: Much of the application of software by state and
corporate actors is about enhancing the effectiveness of existing
surveillance and automating the regulation of access. In what ways is
software enabling new capabilities for spatial governmentality? Also, it
is apparent that software intended to discipline also opens up many novel
types of resistance and new sites for subversive activities that can
disrupt the power relationships in quite surprising ways. We invite
contributions which explore the scope and spatiality of alternative,
subversive and underground hacking of code that challenges established
power relations and jump-scales to effect political change.
# Code and Histories: Can our understanding of the contemporary effects of
the automation of spaces and activities by software be improved by looking
back into the past? Does an understanding of the histories of code, by
untangling how people have lived with information processing technologies
(including the pre-digital era of analogue machinery), give useful
insights into the future?
# Code Fieldwork: In terms of research methodologies, what ways can
software.s effects be best studied, given that they are hidden in arcane
algorithms, and are often locked into privatised micro-spaces and
commercially-secret applications. In particular, how can software be
studied empirically as forms of individual practice that bring spaces into
being in contingent ways, rather than being analysed through its
representation form (written text - the source code - or screen
interfaces)?
----
Proposed papers in the form of a title and short abstract (250 words
maximum) should be submitted to Martin Dodge ([log in to unmask]) by
15th September 2006.
Further details on the paper requirements and registration for the AAG
meeting are at http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/SF2007/call4papers.cfm
We are also planning to organise a special issue in a leading human
geography journal on these themes and authors of full papers from the
session will be invited to participate.
|
