The digitalisation of agriculture: the impact of smart technologies, big data and algorithms on farming in Midland England

该项目将探索农民和农业景观的其他居民如何参与农业中日益增长的数字化，并受到其影响。近年来，农业领域出现了一系列数字化形式，包括使用GPS导航和数字监测，以促进农业投入物的精确交付；农场设备、土地和动物上的数字传感器与来自数据库的信息以及来自卫星、飞机和无人机的遥感图像一起使用；数据流到基于云的服务器，以促进“大数据”的聚合和基于算法的数据分析。虽然现有的研究往往集中在农业数字化的技术方面，但这项研究将开发一个更关键的视角，探索数字化在农场中形成新的社会和超越社会关系的作用等问题；与数字化相关的农业知识、决策、实践和身份的转变；数字化在多大程度上创造了新的或再现了现有的社会分化和不平等；以及通过发展更多“开源”形式的数字化和继续模拟实践来抵制影响的程度。博士学位将涉及对中部地区耕地和牧场占主导地位地区的数字化的研究，并将采用对农业顾问、设备供应商、政策制定者以及农民的采访，以及深入的民族志研究和使用数字视频和摄影来检查与农业数字化的日常接触。

The project will explore how farmers and other inhabitants of agricultural landscapes engage with, and are impacted by, the growing reach of digitalisation within farming. Recent years have seen the emergence of series of forms of digitalisation in agriculture, including use of GPS navigation and digital monitoring to facilitate precision delivery of agricultural inputs; digital sensors on farm equipment, land and animals used alongside information from data-bases and remotely-sensed imagery from satellites, planes and drones; the streaming of data to cloud-based servers to facilitate the aggregation of 'big data' and algorithmic-based data analysis.While existing research has often focused on technical aspects of agricultural digitalisation, this research will develop a more critical perspective exploring issues such as the role of digitalisation plays in the formation of new social and more-than-social relations operating in the farm; transformations in farming knowledge, decision-making, practice and identities associated with digitalisation; the extent to which digitalisation creates new or reproduces existing social divisions and inequalities; and the degree to which impacts can be resisted through the development of more 'open source' forms of digitalisation and the continuation of analogue practices.The PhD will involve an examination of digitalisation in arable and pasture dominated areas of the Midlands, and will employ interviews with agricultural advisors, equipment suppliers and policy makers as well as farmers, plus in-depth ethnographic research and the use of digital videoing and photography to examine everyday engagements with agricultural digitalisation.