General information

Course type AMUPIE
Module title Digital Geographies
Language English
Module lecturer Michał Rzeszewski
Lecturer's email mrz@amu.edu.pl
Lecturer position adiunkt
Faculty Faculty of Human Geography and Planning
Semester 2021/2022 (summer)
Duration 15
ECTS 3
USOS code 25-DG-AMU-PIE

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

This module aim at introducing students to the dynamically emerging field of digital geography. Starting with the observation that almost every aspect of our existence is mediated by digital technologies, we will try to develop a greater understanding of what this mean for the scientific discipline of geography and even more importantly, for geographies of our everyday lives. Our task will be to explore geographies produced through, by and of the digital. Specifically we we will discuss the following: the production and consumption of locational data in world dominated by mobile devices, smart city paradigm and data driven decision making, Big Data sets and their limitations, privacy issues, history of digital geography digital divide and exclusion, geographies of technologies, digital labor, critical GIS.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Ability to read in englishAbility to participate in the discussionBasic human geography knowledgeCourse will be in the mixed format with lectures and seminar discussion with extensive reading requirements

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction to the Digital Geography, history of the discipline Week 2: What is this thing we call cyberspace? And if we really should? Week 3: Geoweb and pervasiveness of locational dataWeek 4: Code/Space Week 5: Big data and algorithms Week 6: Digital Labor and robots Week 7: Digital research methods

Reading list

Ash, J., Kitchin, R., Leszczynski, A., 2018. Digital turn, digital geographies? Progress in Human Geography 42, 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516664800Batty, M., 1997. Virtual geography. Futures 29, 337–352.boyd, danah, Crawford, K., 2012. Critical questions for big data: provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society 15, 662–679. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.678878Elwood, S., 2014. Straddling the fence: Critical GIS and the geoweb. Progress in Human Geography 1, 5.Elwood, S., Leszczynski, A., 2011. Privacy, reconsidered: New representations, data practices, and the geoweb. Geoforum 42, 6–15.Goodchild, M.F., 2007. Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal 69, 211–221.Goodchild, M.F., 2013. The quality of big (geo)data. Dialogues in Human Geography 3, 280–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820613513392Graham, S., 2005. Software-sorted geographies. Progress in Human Geography 29, 562–580. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132505ph568oaKinsley, S., 2014. The matter of ‘virtual’geographies. Progress in Human Geography 38, 364–384.Kitchin, R., Dodge, M., 2011. Code/space: software and everyday life, Software studies. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.Leszczynski, A., 2014. Spatial media/tion. Progress in Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132514558443Massey, D. 1991. “A Global Sense of Place.” Marxism Today 35(6), 24-29Thrift, N., French, S., 2002. The automatic production of space. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 27, 309–335.Wilson, M.W., 2014. Continuous connectivity, handheld computers, and mobile spatial knowledge. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, 535–555.Zook, M., Graham, M., 2017. Hacking Code/Space: Confounding the Code of Global Capitalism.