Changing Digital Geographies

Abstract

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Anthropause environmentalisms: Noticing natures with the Self‐Isolating Bird Club

“…This revisionist approach enables critical examination of how people make sense of encounters with digital natures not as a diminished form of experience, but as an alternative nature experience where 'digital space' is not ontologically separated from 'real space' (Leszczynski, 2015;McLean, 2020). Our research suggests encounters in digital space during the space-time decompression associated with the COVID-19 Anthropause were particularly important for those who were housebound, immobile or had limited access to greenspaces.…”

Virtual reality as a spatial prompt in geography learning and teaching

“…First, the distinction assumes a “natural” mode of existence—one that lies outside of immaterial “virtual” reality—which is untouched by the digital (Kinsley, 2014). This assumption ignores the myriad ways that digital technology is imbricated into everyday existence (Dodge & Kitchin, 2005; Leszczynski, 2015; McLean, 2020); indeed, the centrality of software, data, and code to spatial experience in general is evinced by a cursory inspection of the practices that constitute traditional fieldwork and their contemporary dependence upon myriad geolocation technologies. Second, the notion that VR offers access to a distinct, self‐contained realm implies a Euclidean and primarily visual understanding of space (Ash et al, 2016), which does little justice to the deeply embodied nature of digital geographies (Elwood & Leszczynski, 2018).…”

A political ecology of data

“…The ubiquity of concepts like “cloud” computing and “virtual” environments run against political ecological commonsense (Kinsley, 2014; McLean, 2019). As McLean (2020) notes, the distinction often made between the material and the virtual is problematic: “We might think of the digital as intangible or immaterial and sideline the environmental impacts that our digital lives have if they are deemed to be less than real.” Using the US Pacific Northwest as a case study, Lally et al. provide a unique perspective in the context of the special issue, discussing the materiality of computation.…”