The Digitalisation of Agriculture

这名学生将在马丁·菲利普斯教授(莱斯特大学)和卡罗尔·莫里斯博士(诺丁汉大学)的指导下工作，研究农民和其他农业景观居民如何参与农业数字化并受到其影响。近年来，农业领域出现了一系列形式的数字化，包括使用GPS导航和数字监测来促进农业投入的精确交付；农业设备、土地和动物上的数字传感器与来自数据库的信息和来自卫星、飞机和无人机的遥感图像一起使用；向基于云的服务器传输数据以促进“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侧重于农业数字化的技术方面，但这项研究将发展一种更具批判性的视角，探讨以下问题：数字化在形成农场运作的新的社会关系和非社会关系中所起的作用；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；以及通过开发更多的“开源”数字化形式和继续进行模拟实践可以在多大程度上抵制影响。博士学位将涉及对中部地区以耕地和牧场为主的数字化地区的审查，并将聘请农业顾问、设备供应商和政策制定者以及农民进行访谈，以及深入的民族志研究，并使用数字录像和摄影来审查与农业数字化的日常接触。

The student will work under the supervision of Professor Martin Phillips (University of Leicester), and Dr Carol Morris (University of Nottingham) to study 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 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.