Category: geography

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Reblog> Postcapitalist Futures: Talk at Bristol

Via Mark Purcell…

The University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences will host the 6th annual Bassett lecture on Tuesday 3rd May 2016 at 4pm.This year’s speaker is Nick Srnicek, who will be presenting under the title ‘Postcapitalist Futures’ (details below).

The lecture will take place in the Peel Lecture Theatre, School of Geographical Sciences, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SS

Abstract:
What does the future of work hold? This talk will examine the current capitalist conjuncture, outlining the changing technological and economic conditions of work. The social democratic era of good jobs, it will be shown, is over – and the left must grapple with this shift. In place of full employment, we should be arguing for full unemployment. This talk will try and show both why this is necessary, and how this is possible.

Biography

Nick Srnicek is the co-author, with Alex Williams, of both Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso, 2015) & “#ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics” (2013). He is the co-editor of The Speculative Turn (Re.press, 2011 with Levi Bryant and Graham Harman) and is currently working on a new book entitled Postcapitalist Technologies (Polity, forthcoming).

The Bassett Lecture:

The Bassett Lecture is held every year in honour of Dr. Keith Bassett, a critical geographer and long-time Senior Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences. Though formally retired, Dr. Bassett continues to write, teach, and contribute to the intellectual life of the School and University. The lecture series recognizes Dr. Bassett’s work and contributions in the fields of social and geographical theory, critical geographies of political economy, urbanism, social movements and social justice, political ecology, and critical socio-legal studies.

All Welcome!

No booking required, for enquiries contact: tom.keating [at] bristol.ac.uk

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‘Vulgar’ cultural geographies and technology (new article online) and other ‘provocations for cultural geography today’

I have a short article/commentary recently published online in Social & Cultural Geography:

Vulgar geographies? Popular cultural geographies and technology

The article is one of several from a forthcoming theme issue that is the result of the OU Open Space Centre’s 2014 Doreen Massey annual event themed on ‘provocations of the present’. The theme issue Provocations for Cultural Geography Today has some great papers in it, including:

I strongly encourage having a read of these articles!

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A politics and economics of attention

Just before Christmas (and just before injuring myself) I took part in an ESRC-funded seminar concerning the politics and economics of attention, alongside my colleague Clive Barnett and others.

Jessica Pykett very kindly invited me to talk on the back of the theme issue of Culture Machine Patrick Crogan and I co-edited back in 2012.

There are slides from the talks plus an interesting commentary by Rupert Alcock now posted to the Behaviour Change and Psychological Governance website.

My slides are on ResearchGate…

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Sam Merrill on “Mapping Maps and Gaps: A Critical Digital Cartography of the ‘Mediterranean Refugee Crisis'”

Over on his blog, a little while ago, Sam Merrill blogged an excellent write-up of his participation in the 2016 Digital Methods Initiative Winter School (something I would’ve liked to do but didn’t know about[!] and anyway didn’t have time/funds to do). There’s a lot to think about from Sam’s blogpost, from the politics of different uses of maps in different phonic communities to the discursive politics of ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ and the complex representational politics of different media organisations. Definitely worth a read!

Mapping Maps and Gaps: A Critical Digital Cartography of the ‘Mediterranean Refugee Crisis’

Last month I attended the 2016 Digital Methods Initiative Winter School led by Richard Rogers and his team at the University of Amsterdam. Organised in the format of a data sprint the event saw participants attend a day of keynote talks presented by the likes of, among others, Lilie Chouliaraki, Mathieu Jacomy, Carolin Gerlitz and Rogers himself before turning their attention to a hands-on digital project for the remainder of the week. With the rather clever title of, Otherwise Engaged – Critical Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement Online the Winter School set out to problematize online engagement and develop new methods by which to measure, visualise and interpret that engagement. The group I joined, which was made up of Natalia Sanchez-Querubin (University of Amsterdam), Rik Smit (University of Groningen), Belal Islim (University of Amsterdam), Quentin Lobbe (Telecom Paris Tech), Gabriele Colombo (Density Design), Suzanne van Geuns (Utrecht University) Jasper Bol (University of Amsterdam), Lars Dellemaan (University of Amsterdam), Hadewieg Beekman (University of Amsterdam) set out to create a digital critical cartography of the so-called ‘Mediterranean Refugee Crisis’ (although this phrase formulation arguable shifts attention from the true location of the crisis in the Middle East) .

Our pilot study compared the maps, images, locations and texts returned by Google searches for the queries ‘refugee routes’ and ‘migrant routes’ in seven languages: Arabic, English, French, Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish. As we expected the result showed the different levels of empathetic distance, dehumanization and solidarity associated with the two terms (refugee and migrants) and reinforced the relevancy of the recent debates in the European press about the responsible use of these terms and the campaign by the UNHCR about the degree to which, in this context particularly, word choice matters. It would take too much space to explain in detail all of the different hybridized digital-human methods that we explored and used over the week not to mention all the multi-leveled findings suggested (but not necessarily confirmed) by our initial interpretive forays. So instead I direct those interested to visit our project wiki, which although still being updated, gives a good idea of what we got up to during the week.

Read the full blogpost.

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Reblog> Digital Interfaces, Credit and Debt – new project from @ash_ecotechnics & @BenAndersonGeog

Not really sure how I missed this announcement last week but there you go… An interesting new ESRC-funded project led by James Ash concerning the growth of personal/’pay day’ loans (“High Cost, Short-Term Credit”) that are accessed through mediation, such as an ‘app’. Kudos to James and team for landing this with success rates with the ESRC as low as they are – a great achievement.

I’m sure it’ll be a great project!

Digital Interfaces, Credit and Debt

I am happy to formally announce that I am primary investigator on an ESRCfunded project entitled: ‘Digital Interfaces and Debt: understanding mediated decision making processes in high cost short term credit products’ with co-investigators: Dr Ben Anderson and Dr Paul Langley. 

This 18 month project (2016-2018) seeks to understand how consumers access HCSTC (High Cost Short Term Credit), such as cash and pay day loans through digital interfaces, on personal computers and mobile devices and in turn how these interfaces shape decision making processes regarding the purchasing of credit. The project proposes a novel approach to debt as an everyday phenomenon that is mediated through the relationship between technology and embodied practice. Understanding how people become indebted through digital interfaces is critical to analyzing and explaining contemporary indebtedness because 82% of cash and pay day loans, a key form of HCSTC, are now applied for and managed via digital interfaces on laptops, tablets and smart phones (Competition and Markets Authority, 2015). Through original empirical investigation with designers and users of mobile interfaces, debt support charities and financial regulators, the research will generate new evidence about everyday experiences of debt and indebtedness and contributes to important societal and academic debates about emerging forms of credit and problematic forms of economic subjectivity.

The project begins later this year and will have its own dedicated website and Twitter account, which will be publicized in due course.

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Reblog> The Geopolitics of Context: Mordor, Russia and Google Translate, by @Pip__T

An interesting blogpost by Pip Thornton on the Royal Holloway Geopolotics & Security blog:

The Geopolitics of Context: Mordor, Russia and Google Translate

“One does not simply walk into the Russian Federation”

Over the last week several media outlets, and many more Twitter feeds, have been spreading news of a series of ‘glitches’ in Google Translate which saw the word Russia being synonymised with Mordor when translated from Ukrainian to Russian. Furthermore, Russians became occupiers and for a short time the name of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned the result sad little horse. 

vk-russia-to-ukraine

Twitter / Vadim Nakhankov (wired.co.uk)

Noting that ‘the terms mirror language used by some Ukrainians following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014″², some suggested the possibility of foul play; that the algorithm was ‘hacked by spies‘, ‘jokers’ or ‘mischievous pro-Kiev activists’,  or that the words had been inserted manually by users as alternative translations presumably in order to ridicule Russia and humiliate Lavrov. Other sources referred to a ‘bug’ or an ‘automated error’ in the algorithm, an explanation seemingly substantiated by the way Google quickly issued an ‘embarrassed apology’, stepping in to ‘fix’ their wayward algorithms as soon as the matter came to light.

Read the full post here.

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Recommended: Cultural Geography Going Viral – provocation By @ProfGillian

Another interesting article out in the ‘Online Early’ section of Social & Cultural Geography is by Gillian Rose, from the “Provocations of the Present” OU event, way back in 2014(!).

Gillian gave an interesting talk on the day, which resonated with things I’ve written, and it’s interesting to read the ‘final’ version, entitled “Cultural Geography Going Viral“.

Using the example of Emily Thorberry’s injudicious tweet concerning white vans and the St George’s cross, Gillian explores how the techniques of analysis of such an image and how it is audienced, interpreted, circulated, and so on and, provocatively, discusses how “the skills of the cultural geographer are now widespread”:

In fact, they are probably no more widespread than they ever have been, but social media and online commentary is making them more visible than ever before. Everyone is reading cultural texts and coming to conclusions about their meaning and sharing their interpretations, it seems – and if they can’t understand what’s going on, they ask and they get an answer. Those answers unpack both the symbolism of specific cultural texts but also the production and circulation of those texts by specific forms of media institutions. In other words, cultural interpretation has gone viral.

This resonates in many ways with some of what I argue in my own ‘provocation‘, in which I argue that we (cultural geographers, and others) need to attend to the various ways on understanding mediation when discussing popular culture (and that we need to discuss popular culture more!)

Anyway, all this is simply to say that I recommend reading Prof. Rose’s article.

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Highly recommended: Theatrical magic and the agenda to enchant the world

Some great articles in the ‘Online Early’ section of Social & Cultural Geography (as Mary Gilmartin tweeted today) and one jewel amongst them is a great new paper from Charlie Rolfe on theatrical magic, ‘unreal experiments’ and the agenda to enchant the world.

Charlie gave an early version of this in what was a tour de force seminar at Exeter Geography and I highly recommend reading the article!

Here’s the abstract:

This paper addresses the agenda of enchantment as it relates to contemporary theatrical magic (those deliberately enigmatic activities that are performed, experienced and commercialized as a form of entertainment). Magic practice is regularly constructed along a particular teleology: ‘action → effect of impossibility → affect of astonishment’. The paper supplements this teleology in four sections. First, a discussion of magicians’ knowledge and the ignorance required for participant-spectators to apprehend effects of impossibility and become astonished. Second, an examination of two forms of reason: one, an investigation into hidden ‘secrets’; the other, a perception of superficial ‘effects’. Third, a critique of the figure of the magician and its disputed role within magic practice. Fourth, a presentation and discussion of three empirical vignettes – professional magician Jay Sankey’s ‘Unreal Experiments’ – which advocate an evental logic with an experimental ethos; thus, enacting a critique of the figure and teleological structure of practice, and posing a challenge to rethink and invitation to expand theatrical magic practice. In conclusion, the paper highlights some of the ways in which theatrical magic participates in the agenda to enchant the world that has so gripped social science.

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Reblog> Making space for writing: geography and research writing

This looks interesting and pertinent to the rash of writing-related blogging by Stuart Elden and others in the last couple of years…

Making space for writing: geography and research writing

RGS-IBG ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2016
Royal Geographical Society, London

30th August – 3rd September 2016

Call for Papers

Making space for writing: geography and research writing

Sponsored by the Higher Education Research Group of the RGS-IBG

Session Organisers: Rae Dufty-Jones (Western Sydney University) and Chris Gibson (University of Wollongong)

Writing is integral to how we perform our scholarly identities as geographers. As Kamler and Thompson (2006: 15) argue: ‘we are represented by our writings and we are judged by them’. Research writing is a key product by which colleagues and institutions evaluate our past and potential contributions. It is often the source of much personal anxiety. To be able to write about their research is also a key skill that graduate students are often expected to have mastered by the time they complete their doctoral studies.

Yet, while we regularly espouse the need to ‘find space’ for our writing, we have seldom overtly theorised space in our writing practices. Writing remains a ‘black box’ in geographical literatures.

This session invites proposals to present work examining the nexus between geography, geographers and research writing. Some suggested questions for framing papers include:

  • What role does ‘space’ play in our writing practices?
  • What strategies are employed by geographers to make ‘space’ (figurative, literal, relational) for our research writing?
  • What does the advent of the neoliberal university mean for academic writing practice?
  • How have geographers challenged or resisted managerial expectations around their writing practices and products?
  • How might geographers contribute theoretically/conceptually to understandings of research writing both generally, and pedagogically?
  • What approaches do geographers use in teaching graduate students how to write, and how might these approaches be improved, especially through a focus on ‘making space’ for writing?
  • Reflections on graduate student experiences of being taught how to write their research – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Please email proposals (title + 200-250 word Abstract) or queries to Rae Dufty-Jones (r.dufty-jones@western.edu.au) and Chris Gibson (cgibson@uow.edu.au).  The deadline for Abstracts is Friday 5th February 2016.  The format of the session will be the presentation of 4-5 selected papers each lasting 20 minutes.

Reference
Kamler B and Thomson P. (2006) Helping doctoral students write: Pedagogies for supervision, London: Routledge.

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CFP> Where Next? Historical Geographies of the Future (via @CritGeog )

This looks really interesting, and if I were going to the RGS conference I’d submit something to be considered –>

Where Next? Historical Geographies of the Future

Jake Hodder (Nottingham) and Mike Heffernan (Nottingham), sponsored by the Historical Geography Research Group

Call for Papers – RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 30 August – 2 September 2016

How historical subjects have imagined their futures is crucial to understanding their pasts, and invariably reflects a wide range of geographical as well as historical imaginations. Likewise, many key areas of geographical enquiry (such as development, environment, geopolitics, imperialism, political economy) draw significance in part on their ability to lay claim to ideas of the future, implicitly or otherwise. Yet the role played by these collective speculations is seldom directly addressed and their contingent nature makes it difficult to reconstruct their full rhetorical strength.

Until recently, therefore, historical accounts of ‘the future’ have been predominantly shaped by ideas of the ‘distant future’. Distant in both the sense of time, ambiguously blending science and fiction (the future of ray guns and spaceships), and distant in the sense of ideals, realised or lost (the future of utopias and dystopias); but what of our other sense of the future? What has been the role played by the idea of the immediate ‘knowable future’? A future which attends more closely to possibility and prediction than to fantasy and utopia.

2016 marks a pertinent time to reflect on the relevance of these questions for geographers, as historians have also recently done (Engerman 2012; Rosenberg and Harding 2005), and ask where next? This year marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia in Latin; and two related, and much anticipated, exhibitions are currently running at The Louvre in Paris (24 September 2015 – 4 January 2016) and Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels (11 September 2015 – 24 January 2016) entitled A Brief History of the Future, based on the 2006 international bestseller by Jacques Attali of the same name. This session invites papers from across the discipline which examine ‘the future’ in its varied manifestations (political, personal, and technological) and may wish to engage some of the following questions:

“¢ What are, and what have been, the geographies of the future – what geographical ideas have shaped future consciousness and from where?
“¢ How have different historical moments or events fostered speculation of other futures?
“¢ What is the relationship between experience and expectation, and how have ideas of the future shaped everyday lives?
“¢ How have conceptions of the future intersected with political, scientific, economic or cultural ideas, or with other areas of geographical interest?
“¢ What are the historical geographies of prediction and other ‘future-making’ practices – surveys, statistics, social trends, forecasting?

Please send your name, title and abstract (300 words) to both conveners by Friday, February 12th.