Overview
The digital age has thrown questions of representation, participation and humanitarianism back to the fore, as machine learning, algorithms and big data centres take over the process of mapping the subjugated and subaltern. Since the rise of Google Earth in 2005, there has been an explosion in the use of mapping tools to quantify and assess the needs of those in crisis, including those affected by climate change and the wider neo-liberal agenda. Yet, while there has been a huge upsurge in the data produced around these issues, the representation of people remains questionable. Some have argued that representation has diminished in humanitarian crises as people are increasingly reduced to data points. In turn, this data has become ever more difficult to analyse without vast computing power, leading to a dependency on the old colonial powers to refine the data collected from people in crisis, before selling it back to them. This book brings together critical perspectives on the role that mapping people, knowledges and data now plays in humanitarian work, both in cartographic terms and through data visualisations, and questions whether, as we map crises, it is the map itself that is in crisis.
Full Product Details
Author: Doug Specht
Publisher: University of London
Imprint: University of London Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.505kg
ISBN: 9781912250332
ISBN 10: 1912250330
Pages: 276
Publication Date: 14 September 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
The development of web 2.0 technologies applied to mapping was at first heralded as a means of democratizing online mapping by enabling everyday people to collect and share spatial data across an array of digital media. However, this edited volume demonstrates and critiques the misapplication of web mapping and provides many examples of how the technology can reinforce neocolonialism in the developing world or promote 'datafication,' understood as the use of individuals as data resources to exploit for profit. . . .Overall, this text will be welcomed by readers interested in a mature discussion of the social implications of web mapping technologies, including graduate and advanced undergraduate students in geography, global studies, human rights, political science, and science and technology studies programs. * Choice *
"""The development of web 2.0 technologies applied to mapping was at first heralded as a means of democratizing online mapping by enabling everyday people to collect and share spatial data across an array of digital media. However, this edited volume demonstrates and critiques the misapplication of web mapping and provides many examples of how the technology can reinforce neocolonialism in the developing world or promote 'datafication,' understood as the use of individuals as data resources to exploit for profit. . . .Overall, this text will be welcomed by readers interested in a mature discussion of the social implications of web mapping technologies, including graduate and advanced undergraduate students in geography, global studies, human rights, political science, and science and technology studies programs."" * Choice *"
Author Information
Doug Specht is director of teaching and learning at the University of Westminster. He has taught across a range of age groups and educational settings around the world.
