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Abstract
The term neogeography, which designates the proliferation of Web-based geographic information technologies and the parallel opening up of the mapping enterprise to nonexpert cartographers, gained traction in 2006. Implicit in the declaration of neogeography, however, is a trivialization of the geographic discipline. Academic geographers, who have never expressed affinity for the label neogeography, have worked to problematize the instrumentalist reductionism of the discipline to data and technics that such a branding presupposes. But as Wilson and Graham (Citation2013b) recently argued, neogeography—or neo, geography—is as much a statement about newness as it is a commentary about the discipline. Geographers’ emphasis on the geography part of the neo, geography equation, although warranted, has come at the expense of examining the equally important societal implications of the framing of recent spatial information technologies as always-already new. In this article, I foreground the neo in neo, geography and trace the ways in which the ascribed newness of emergent Web-based spatial media is leveraged in discursive-material practices that enact certain kinds of changes in the world. Drawing on illustrative empirical examples, I demonstrate the ways in which newness (1) acts as a discursive device that depoliticizes spatial media so as to lay the groundwork for their social naturalization; (2) is made recourse to as a means by which certain techno-capitalist actors disavow themselves of responsibility for the societal effects of these technologies; and (3) underwrites the model through which the proliferation and thereby profitability of location-based services is sustained.
新地理学一词, 标示出以网路为基础的地理信息科技的盛行, 伴随着开放给非製图专业者的製图企业, 在 2006 年获得了关注。但新地理学的宣称, 却隐含着地理学科变得无足轻重的问题。对 “新地理学” 的标籤不表赞同的地理学者, 则致力于将地理学科化约为信息与技术的工具性化约主义加以问题化, 而该主义则是此一宣传的假定前提。但正如 Wilson 与 Graham (2003b) 晚近所主张, 新地理学——抑或是新的地理学——是有关 “新颖性” 的宣言, 同时也是对地理学科的评论。地理学者对于新地理学方程式中地理部分的强调儘管获得了确认, 但却是以下列问题为代价——总是将与晚近空间信息科技框架同等重要的社会意涵永远视为新的。我在本文中凸显新地理学中的新颖性, 并追溯以网路为基础的新兴空间媒体中的先赋新颖性, 如何运用在论述—物质的实践中, 该实践将世界上特定的改变类型付诸行动。我运用描绘性的经验案例, 证实新颖性如何做为 (1) 去政治化的空间媒体的论述机制, 以此为其社会自然化奠定了基础; (2) 让特定的技术资本行动者藉此对自身拥有的技术所产生的社会效应进行卸责的方法来源; (3) 确保以地方为基础的服务藉此成长并因而获利的模型。
El término neogeografía, con el que se designa la proliferación de tecnologías de la información geográfica basadas en la Web y la apertura paralela de la empresa cartográfica para ponerla a disposición de cartógrafos inexpertos, ganó impulso en el 2006. En la declaración de neogeografía, sin embargo, va implícita una trivialización de la disciplina geográfica. Los geógrafos académicos, que nunca han expresado afinidad alguna con la etiqueta neogeografía, han trabajado para cuestionar el reduccionismo instrumentalista de la disciplina a los datos y técnicas que el tal remoquete presupone. Pero, como recientemente arguyeron Wilson y Graham (2013b), la neogeografía—o neo, geografía—lleva implícita tanto una declaración sobre la novedad como un comentario acerca de la disciplina. El énfasis que ponen los geógrafos sobre la parte geografía de la ecuación neo, geografía, aunque justificada, ocurre a costa de examinar las igualmente importantes implicaciones sociales de la usual ubicación de recientes tecnologías espaciales de la información como novedosas. En este artículo, le doy prelación al neo en la neo-geografía, y trazo las maneras como la novedad atribuida a los medios espaciales emergentes basados en la Web son aprovechadas en prácticas discursivo-materiales que promulgan cierto tipo de cambios en el mundo. Apoyándome en ejemplos empíricos ilustrativos, demuestro los modos en que la novedad (1) actúa como un instrumento discursivo que despolitiza los medios espaciales hasta el punto de desplegar el trabajo básico para su naturalización social; (2) se convierte en el recurso como medio para que ciertos actores tecno-capitalistas se libren a sí mismos de responsabilidad por los efectos sociales de estas tecnologías; y (3) suscribe el modelo a través del cual se sustentan la proliferación y beneficio de los servicios basados en localización.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks, as always, to Sarah Elwood for conversations and reflections on both neo and geography. I am furthermore grateful to the four anonymous reviewers for their thought-provoking commentaries and insightful suggestions, as well as to Mei-Po Kwan for her editorial guidance. This research has been supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship.
Notes
1. Coincidentally, Andrew Turner has since been hired by ESRI, the commercial vendors of ArcGIS software, where he serves as the Chief Technology Officer of the ESRI Research and Development Center in Washington, DC.
2. Building on Terranova's (2004) definition of network culture, networked societies are social and cultural formations characterized by an “unprecedented abundance” of digital technologies and information artifacts and an “acceleration” of digital media “dynamics” (1).
3. In 2010, the Borings won their appeal against Google, receiving a US$1 settlement for violations stemming from trespassing (Kincaid Citation2010).
4. A location-based service is a Web service that integrates and exploits geographical referents (e.g., spatial coordinates) as a premise for user interaction with web content (Schiller and Voisard Citation2004).
5. Ambient social networking applications such as Highlight continuously broadcast a user's mobile location signal and use it to notify users of “interests” (persons and places) in their vicinity.
6. Foursquare is a geosocial application for mobile devices. It allows users to virtually check in to (report their presence at) a location, known as a venue. Venues include commercial establishments, public spaces, residences, and so on. Users can check in through a Web-based interface, through the application itself, by text message, or by having their check-ins from other LBS pushed to Foursquare. The utility of the service is to notify friends and contacts of one's location, or be notified of others’ locations, to facilitate meet-ups in person, and to stay abreast of others’ spatial positions.