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Call for
Papers: Situating the
Geoweb as Technoscience (Deadline
Extended
to Sept. 15th)
Association
of American Geographers
Annual Meeting
9-13 April
2012
Los
Angeles, CA
Organizers:
Craig M.
Dalton, Dept. of Geography
and Geosciences, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Matthew W.
Wilson, Dept. of
Geography, University of Kentucky
Geographers
have given much
attention to the ‘geoweb’ in recent years, in attempting to
describe or index
geoweb instances, or emphasizing the data aspects of the
phenomenon (e.g.,
volunteered geographic information or VGI; data
quality/accuracy), their
attendant data practices (e.g., crowdsourcing; user-generation
of content), and
increasingly, the social processes and implications of new
geographic
information technologies (e.g. economies of the geoweb and new
privacy
concerns).
Situating
the practices that
produce/enable the geoweb is key to furthering deep, critical
understandings of
this phenomena as one part of a broader ‘big data’ movement.
This session seeks
to develop a critical geography of the geoweb by putting the
present geoweb
into a broader social context as a technoscientific development.
Therefore, we
are looking for papers that get beyond the current hype and
spectacle around
the geoweb to investigate the social histories, stakes, and
cultural limits of
the geoweb as well as modes of critical geoweb research. These
lines of inquiry
may allow us to better understand the larger social processes,
standpoints, and
possibilities of the geoweb. Furthermore, we hope that this
session will help
launch a conversation about how to do critical geographic
research on and
within the geoweb. Potential questions or issues we hope to
explore in this
session include:
- How did
the geoweb develop within
the social programs of governments, corporations, and other
organizations?
- How did
FOSS, map-hacking,
conspicuous mobilities, etc. become significant to the geoweb?
- How are
these social processes and
geographies apparent and relevant in today’s geoweb?
- How is
the geoweb (socially and
culturally) similar and different from other geographic
knowledges and
geotechnologies?
- Where did
the geoweb develop?
- How does
this social context shape
the limits and possibilities of the geoweb?
- How might
geographers perform this
kind of research?
Please
contact co-organizers Craig
Dalton ([log in to unmask])
and Matthew W. Wilson ([log in to unmask]) by
Sept. 15th if you
are interested in participating in this paper session. In your
email, please
propose a paper title and include a working AAG abstract (250
words).
-- Craig M. Dalton Instructor Department of Environmental, Geographical, and Geological Sciences (EGGS) Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania