Hi all,
*Apologies for cross posting*
Call for Papers: AAG 2016, 29 March – 2 April. San Francisco, USA.
'Digital technologies, everyday geographies and experiencing space and place'
As digital technologies continue to effect and affect the everyday practice(s) of many people, and indeed their daily geographies, there is a need to further the geographical underpinnings of what this means at different scales and in different contexts. Digital technologies have long affected our daily practices, but it is only in the past decade that we have seen unprecedented intertwinements between the two. As geographers and others have already made clear, this has had a significant impact on the ways in which life is now lived.
Whilst geographers have thus far dealt well with the impacts of digital technology from a top-down perspective, investigating the effects of digital-technical objects, ‘big data’ and digital technical systems from a societal and theoretical perspective (see Graham & Shelton, 2013; Kinsley, 2013; Kitchin & Dodge, 2011; Kitchin, 2014; leszczynski, 2014, 2015; Wilson, 2012; Zook & Graham, 2007), it could well be said that the discipline has focused less on the bottom-up, cultural perspectives on how such objects and technical systems have affected the everyday practice(s) and experiences of users (see Ash, 2012, 2014; Brown & Laurier, 2005; Wilmott, 2012 for notable exceptions).
In part response to Rob Kitchin’s continued call for more research that focuses on the bottom as well as the top of the ‘stacks’, which constitute any digital socio-technical system, and Gillian Rose’s recent call for more engagement from cultural geographers in this field, this session aims to bring together papers which describe, discuss and explain the multiplicity of ways in which everyday life has become infused with the digital from a cultural perspective. Its primary objective is to explore how and why digital technologies are coming to effect experiences and co-constructions of space and place. In doing so it invites a selection of papers that question our personal uses of digital technology in the constitution of place, as well as those that explore the impacts of everyday life in a world in which digital technology is increasingly producing the space(s) of culture.
The session invites papers that critically explore the lived experiences of everyday geographies in a world that is increasingly intertwined with digital socio-technical systems. In addition to a descriptive focus we ask that the papers engage critically with the impacts of digital technology on everyday practice. For instance, by highlighting the complex, dynamic and relational ways in which the digital infuses itself into daily geographies.
Possible topics may include:
- The impact of digital objects and systems on a particular culture, place or location
- The impact that digital technology may have on a particular mobility, sociality, consumption practice or engagement with politics
- The impact of the digital divide on constructions of space and experiences of place
- The inequalities of everyday life infused with the digital
- The methodological implications for exploring the digital in everyday life
- The close examination of digital objects
- The materiality of the digital in everyday practice
- The embodiment(s) of digital objects/things
- The sensuous effects of digital technologies
- The phenomenological experiences of using digital technology
Session organiser: Mike Duggan (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Those interested in presenting a paper in this session should submit an abstract of up to 250 words to Mike Duggan ([log in to unmask] ) by Friday 16th October 2015. Successful applications will be contacted by the 23rd October 2015, and will be expected to pay and register online at the AAG website by the 29th October 2015.
|