**Apologies for cross-posting**
DIGITAL ECOLOGIES
We are looking for additional participants for a two-day online workshop
to take place in the week beginning March 29th, 2021. The workshop will
be free of charge, and is sponsored by the Vital Geographies Research
Group, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. This event was
previously advertised as a CfP for an AAG 2021 panel on 18/09 and 15/10,
which it is no longer associated with.
Ten speakers have already been confirmed, and we are delighted to have a
keynote address from Professor Etienne Benson, Associate Professor,
History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.
The workshop will inform a special issue on the topic of Digital
Ecologies for publication in 2022.
CfP 3 - Deadline for Submissions: Midnight, 23rd December, 2020
Abstract
Human engagements with other-than-human life are increasingly digitised;
from the widespread consumption of wildlife documentary films, to the
deployment of novel technologies in wildlife conservation and
management, to the livestreaming of animals' private lives via hidden
cams. Plants, too, are rendered cyborg, as digital technologies are
increasingly used to foster and aid the management of 'smart forests'.
Digital animals, moreover, have themselves proliferated; some of which
can be encountered in virtual or augmented realities like Pokémon Go as
distinct ontological beings. Virtual encounters with nature, therefore,
are an increasingly common part of human-nature relations and
entanglements. Equally, ecologies themselves are increasingly known and
made knowable through digital monitoring systems. In this session, we
explore the term 'digital ecologies'; understood as the new, old, and/or
emerging forms of encounter, engagement, governance, and accountability
that arise from these technologically mediated more-than-human networks.
We seek to foster critical conversations between more-than-human
geographies, political ecology, digital geographies, and media studies
(as well as cognate fields of study) to understand the varying ways in
which nonhumans are digitised and for what purposes; the specific
affective relations engendered through, and capacities of,
digitally-mediated natures; how digital mediation is experienced by
nonhumans themselves; the promises and problems of digital ecologies for
conservation; and the ways in which novel forms of virtual encounter
value are produced.
We invite contributions in all empirical areas. They could explore:
• The role of digital technologies in conservation;
• GPS-tracking animals;
• Virtual animal/plant encounters;
• Media representations of animals/plants;
• Animals/plants in film, animal/plant photography;
• Virtual encounter value;
• Virtual or augmented reality and ecology;
• Ecologies and materialities of the digital;
• Digital ecologies and the 'smart city';
• Social media and digital ecologies;
• Digital ecologies and affect;
• Digital ecologies and spectacle;
• The promise of the digital for more-than-human methodologies;
• Digital urban ecologies.
Some key readings include:
• Adams, W. M. (2017) Geographies of Conservation II: Technologies,
Surveillance and Conservation by Algorithm, Progress in Human Geography,
DOI: 10.1177/0309132517740220.
• Adams, W. M. (2020) "Digital Animals." The Philosopher 108, no. 1.
https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/adams.
• Ash, J., Kitchin, R. and Leszczynski, A. (2016) Digital turn,
digital geographies? Progress in Human Geography, 42(1): 25-43.
• Benson, E. (2010) Wired Wilderness: Technologies of Tracking and
the Making of Modern Wildlife. John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.
• Bergman, C. (2005) Inventing a beast with no body: Radio-telemetry,
the marginalization of animals, and the simulation of ecology.
Worldviews, 9(2): 255-270.
• Berland, J. (2019) Virtual Menageries: Animals as Mediators in
Network Cultures. The MIT Press.
• Büscher, B. (2016),'Nature 2.0: Exploring and theorizing the links
between new media and nature conservation', New Media & Society, 18:5,
pp. 726–43.
• Chambers, C. (2007) "Well its remote, I suppose, innit?" The
relational politics of bird-watching through the CCTV lens. Scottish
Geographical Journal, 123(2): 122-134.
• Davies, G. (2000), 'Virtual animals in electronic zoos: The
changing geographies of animal capture and display', in C. Philo and C.
Wilbert (eds), Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of
Human–Animal Relations, London: Routledge, pp. 243–67.
• Gabrys, J. (2020) Smart forests and data practices: From the
Internet of Trees to planetary governance. Big Data & Society, 1-10.
• Lorimer, J. (2010) Moving image methodologies for more-than-human
geographies. Cultural Geographies, 17(2): 237-258.
• Rose, G. (2017) Posthuman agency in the digitally mediated city:
Exteriorization, individuation, reinvention. Annals of the American
Association of Geographers 107(4): 779-793.
• Turnbull, J., Searle, A., and Adams, W. M. (2020) Quarantine
encounters with digital animals: More-than-human geographies of lockdown
life. Journal of Environmental Media 1 (Supplement): 6.1-10.
doi.org/10.1386/jem_00027_1.
• Verma, A., van der Wal, R. and Fischer, A. (2016), 'Imagining
wildlife: New technologies and animal censuses, maps and museums',
Geoforum, 75, pp. 75–86.
• Virtual Animals. Special issue of Antennae, issue 30, winter 2014,
ISSN 1756-9575.
Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to Jonathon Turnbull
([log in to unmask]), Adam Searle ([log in to unmask]), and Henry
Anderson-Elliott ([log in to unmask]) by midnight on December 23rd. We
welcome contributions from academics, artists, and practitioners
concerned with digital ecologies, and are particularly keen to host
those who deploy digital technologies in their presentations. Please
don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions or comments you may
have!
--
Henry Anderson-Elliott
PhD Student, Polar Studies
Scott Polar Research Institute
University of Cambridge
*************************************************************
Anthropology Matters is a network of the ASA, who administer this list.
https://anthropologymatters.com and https://theasa.org
AM is used to communicate with postgraduate & postdoctoral anthropologists
working in the UK and abroad to provide alerts to: new issues of the Open Access
Anthropology Matters journal, and events of anthropological interest in the UK
anthropology community such as conferences and seminars or funding opportunities.
Join the list or view archived messages:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters
To email the list use: [log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe please click here:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1
**************************************************************
|