AAG sessions – Critical GIScience, GeoWeb and Citizen Science

The Association of American Geographers conference is just around the corner – between 21 and 24 April, held in Chicago. I’ve already marked some sessions that I think worth noting (and was involved in the organisation of several sessions, too). Here is a list of interesting sessions, following suggestion to do so by David O’Sullivan and Jim Thatcher:

Tuesday 21st April

8:00 1187 #CritGIS: Pedagogies of Critical GIS – session exploring ‘the pedagogy surrounding critical engagement with societal implications of contemporary digital geospatial technologies’, with Matthew W. Wilson, Ellen Kersten, LaDona G. Knigge, Alexander Tarr,  Francis Harvey, and Clinton Davis.

At the same time, there is a mini-symposium of three sessions, starting with 1156 Digital Connectivity, Inclusion, and Inequality at the World’s Economic Peripheries  (papers session) asking ‘what difference people expect better connectivity to make at the world’s economic peripheries’.

10:00 1256 Digital Connectivity, Inclusion, and Inequality at the World’s Economic Peripheries 2 (papers session)

12:40 1456 Digital Connectivity, Inclusion, and Inequality at the World’s Economic Peripheries 3 (papers session)

Also at 12:40 1487 Where’s the Value? Emerging Digital Economies of Geolocation (panel session) with Jeremy Crampton, Rob Kitchin, Elvin K. Wyly, Agnieszka Leszczynski, David Murakami Wood, Julie Cupples and
Sam Kinsley

2:40 1587 #CritGIS: Social Justice and GIS: Past, Present, and Future –  aimed to ‘reflect, reconsider, and prognosticate on the social, political and ethical issues that GIS brings to bear’ (papers session)

Wednesday 22nd April

For most of the day, there are four sessions dedicated to reflection on Public Participatory GIS or Participatory GIS.

8:00 2153 Looking Backwards and Forwards in Participatory GIS (Papers session)

10:00 2253 Looking Backwards and Forwards in Participatory GIS: Session II (Papers session)

1:20 2453 Looking Backwards and Forwards in Participatory GIS: Session III (Papers session)

2:40 2553 Looking Backwards and Forwards in Participatory GIS: Session IV (Panel session), including Bandana Kar (Chair), and Renee Sieber, Nancy J. Obermeyer, Melinda J. Laituri and myself as panellists.

In Parallel, there are a set of session on critical studies of data and crowdsourcing, including

8:00 2125 Critical Data, Critical Technology: In Praxis (papers session) a session exploring ‘how practitioners are mobilizing data, technologies, and analytics in ways that resonate with ‘critical data and technology studies’.’

10:00 2225 Critical Data, Critical Technology: In Theory 1 (papers session)

1:20 2425 Critical Data, Critical Technology: In Theory 2 (papers session)

After these symposia, there is a citizen science / VGI papers session

3:20 2543 Utilizing Citizen Science for Supporting Geospatial Applications

Finally, there is a papers session about Critical GIS and teaching

5:20 2627 Teaching and Doing Critical GIS in the Undergraduate Classroom ‘This session focuses on the challenges and possibilities of teaching and doing critical GIS in the undergraduate classroom.’

Thursday 23rd April

8:00 3153 Big Data – Perils and Promises (papers session) ‘This session focuses on research on big data, geoprivacy and their applications, and seeks to contribute to current debates about the usability of big data in near real-time applications (e.g., crisis mapping, network analysis).’

But also two sessions on Spatial Big Data and Everyday Life, with ‘papers along methodological, empirical, and theoretical interventions that trace, reconceptualize, or address the everyday spatial materialities of Big Data.’

8:00 3150 Spatial Big Data and Everyday Life I

10:00 3250 Spatial Big Data and Everyday Life II

10:00 3253 Citizen Science and Geoweb (papers session) ‘Given the growth of both Geoweb and Citizen Science, this session focuses on research contributing to current debates about the role of citizen science in Geoweb in generating useful data and information for scientific research’

1:20 3444 New Directions in Mapping 1: Research, jobs, and teaching outside the academy  Panel with Britta Ricker (chair) John Bailey, Andrew Hill, Charlie Loyd, Alan McConchie, and Alyssa Wright.

3:20 3544 New Directions in Mapping 2: Open Source, Crowd-sourcing and “Big Data”

But at the same time there is another critical GIS session

3:20 3545 #CritGIS: On the Political Economy of Geospatial Technologies, a panel with Eric S. Sheppard (chair), and Craig M. Dalton, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Francis Harvey and James Thatcher. ‘The panel considers the degree to which political economies have shifted in the development of GIS since its proliferation in the mid- to late-1990s’

Friday 24th April

8:00 4173 Beyond motivation? Understanding enthusiasm in citizen science and volunteered geographic information (papers session) a session that Hilary Geoghegan and I organised. ‘This session seeks to explore and debate current research and practice moving beyond motivation, to consider the associated enthusiasm, materials and meanings of participating in citizen science and VGI.’

There are two session on OpenStreetMap that Alan McConchie and I organised, Taking the 10th birthday of OSM as a starting point, this session will survey the state of geographical research on OpenStreetMap and recognising that OSM studies are different from VGI. The session is supported by the European COST Energic (COST Action IC1203) network: European Network Exploring Research into Geospatial Information Crowdsourcing.

1:20 4444 OpenStreetMap Studies 1 (papers session)

3:20 4544 OpenStreetMap Studies 2 (papers session)