Digital geographies: geodata – code - society

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The so-called „digitization of society“ is one of the largest challenges of our times. One core characteristic of digitization is the increasing production, storage and usage of digital data. Countless social and environmental aspects are being measured in abstract, machine-readable forms, archived in databases and analyzed by computerized, algorithmic procedures. A large share of these data is geographically referenced (geodata). Geospatial data become formative for ever more societal spheres, influencing spatial practices and geographical imaginations alike. However, theoretical and methodological reflections of big spatial data has been largely the domain of technical sciences. Approaches from the humanities and the social sciences are mostly focused on the application of new digital methods, e.g. by the Digital Humanities or Computational Social Sciences. Critical discussions of data production and usage contexts, or of involved technologies and practices remain rudimentary so far. This is where the proposed network intervenes: objectives are 1) bringing a young generation of human geographers, geoinformation scholars, cartographers and media scientists into a critical dialogue about the social potentials and risks of geospatial data; 2) advancing social theories of data, data practices and technologies; 3) acquiring and adopting methods for an appropriate handling of big geospatial data; 4) exploring the social implications of the growing significance of geodata; 5) the network strives to promote and institutionalize the research area of “digital geographies” in German-speaking human geography. Additionally, the network seeks to intensify international and interdisciplinary cooperation with geographers and scholars of neighboring disciplines. Moreover, the network will stimulate further research projects and cooperation in the thematic fields of digitization, datafication or algorithmization of society. Beside these more general goals, the network will publish the edited volume “Handbuch digitale Geographie: Geodaten, Code, Gesellschaft” [“Companion of digital geography: geodata, code and society”] and organize a summer school of human geography on “geographies of the digital”.