Colleagues
(With apologies for cross posting)
We are inviting abstract submissions for a session entitled "What world do you live in? Blurred
boundaries between physical and digital spaces", which will take place at the Royal Geographical
Society (with Institute of British Geographers) Annual International Conference, 26-29 August
2014. The session is sponsored by RGS-IBG's Transport Geography Research Group (TGRG)
Outline
The emergence of richly functional and pervasive Information and Communication Technologies
has disrupted many of the spatio-temporal constraints that traditionally bound human behaviour.
For instance, the growing sophistication of mobile devices has enabled the emergence of mobile
professional workers who operate largely without a traditional fixed workplace and the
development of sophisticated online retail portals is fundamentally changing the nature of
shopping behaviour and shopping-related travel. Moreover, cyberspaces themselves have a
unique set of quasi-spatial characteristics with which researchers are now beginning to grapple.
These developments challenge geographers' traditional understandings of time and space in
distinctive ways. The aim of this session is to encourage discussion and reflection on the
inter-relationship between the physical and digital through contributions dealing with the
following (or closely linked) topics:
* The inter-relationships between ICT use, transport geography and time use
* Changing human and economic geographies associated with the rise of virtual networks
* Regional and international variations (esp. North v. South) in patterns of ICT engagement,
as well as social inequalities
* Geographies of virtual reality environments
* ICT-enabled data collection methods
* Geographical consequences of disruptions to virtual networks
* Comparative analyses of business vs. personal ICT usage
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted via e-mail to
[log in to unmask] no later than 31 January 2014.
Regards.
Scott Le Vine, Jacek Pawlak and John Polak
Imperial College London
--
Prof. John Polak
Chairman, Centre for Transport Studies
Director of Research, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Imperial College London
www.imperial.ac.uk/cts
www.imperial.ac.uk/civilengineering
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