Digital geographies: geodata – code - society

所谓的“社会数字化”是我们这个时代最大的挑战之一。数字化的一个核心特征是数字数据的生产、存储和使用不断增加。无数的社会和环境方面正在以抽象的、机器可读的形式进行衡量，在数据库中存档，并通过计算机化的算法程序进行分析。这些数据中有很大一部分是地理参考的(地理数据)。地理空间数据对越来越多的社会领域产生影响，影响着空间实践和地理想象。然而，大数据的理论和方法思考在很大程度上一直是技术科学的领域。人文科学和社会科学的方法主要集中在新的数字方法的应用上，例如数字人文科学或计算社会科学。到目前为止，对数据生产和使用情况或所涉技术和做法的关键讨论仍处于初级阶段。这就是拟议的网络介入的领域：1)使年轻一代的人类地理学家、地理信息学者、制图员和媒体科学家就地理空间数据的社会潜力和风险进行批判性对话；2)促进数据、数据实践和技术的社会理论；3)获取和采用适当处理大型地理空间数据的方法；4)探索地理数据日益重要的社会影响；5)该网络努力促进德语人文地理学中“数字地理学”的研究领域并使之制度化。此外，该网络寻求加强与邻近学科的地理学家和学者的国际和跨学科合作。此外，该网络还将促进在社会的数字化、数据化或算法化等专题领域开展进一步的研究项目和合作。除了这些更广泛的目标外，该网络还将出版经编辑的“手把手数字地理：地理数据、代码和地理信息”卷[“数字地理之友：地理数据、代码和社会”]，并组织一期关于“数字地理”的人文地理学暑期学校。

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”.