[UNF-DHI] FW: [ESS Forum] AAG 2025 - Hybrid Paper Session: Digital geographies of rural and environmental archives

Wed Oct 23 10:08:43 EDT 2024

I thought this conference opportunity might be of interest to those on this list. Please see the message below.

JG

From: Ricardo Barbosa, Jr. <ribarbosajr at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2024 at 9:38 AM
To: essforum at aessonline.org <essforum at aessonline.org>
Cc: Estevan Leopoldo de Freitas Coca <estevan.coca at unifal-mg.edu.br>, gbarrera at berkeley.edu <gbarrera at berkeley.edu>
Subject: [ESS Forum] AAG 2025 - Hybrid Paper Session: Digital geographies of rural and environmental archives
Hi folks,

An invitation for a Hybrid Paper Session I am co-organizing for the American Association of Geographers 2025 Annual Meeting https://www.aag.org/events/aag2025/

Digital geographies of rural and environmental archives

Ricardo Barbosa, Jr.
PhD Student, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, United States
RiBarbosa at clarku.edu<mailto:RiBarbosa at clarku.edu>

Estevan Coca
Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences Institute, Federal University of Alfenas, Brazil
estevan.coca at unifal-mg.edu.br<mailto:estevan.coca at unifal-mg.edu.br>

Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, United States
gbarrera at berkeley.edu<mailto:gbarrera at berkeley.edu>

Digitizing analog archives has been deemed essential for preservation (Kominko, 2015). However, archives have served to impose a particular form of memory – often written and institutional – to certain territories while erasing the histories of populations such as Indigenous, Black, and campesino communities (e.g., Percel, 2024), who organize and tell their stories in their own terms. The growing volume of materials available through digital archives – such as documents, statistics, languages, and maps – offers remote access to curated collections from around the world (Jardine & Drage, 2019). This vast pool of digital sources not only opens new possibilities for recombination and interpretation (e.g., Bressey, 2020) but also positions digital archives as powerful sites of authority (Hodder & Beckingham, 2022).
Geography has examined the politics of digitizing archives for some time (Withers, 2002), with evolving digital technologies reproducing already existing and introducing new power dynamics (Zaagsma, 2023). Critical scholarship highlights the risks of capture, assetization, geo/biopiracy, erasure, misrepresentation, and weaponization (Wainwright, 2013; Koopman, 2016) pointing out how platforms and algorithms can shape access and interpretation in unchecked ways (Ringel & Ribak, 2024). Yet, archiving can also be a form of resistance, central to emancipatory struggles. Rural communities across the Global North and South use archives to challenge dominant narratives, leveraging local knowledge to amplify marginalized voices in challenging injustices (Beel et al., 2015; Barbosa Jr & Roriz, 2021).
Thus, lies the opportunity to engage critically with digital archives, recognizing them not as neutral repositories of facts but rather as products of specific social, political, and technological contexts. For this reason, we set out to navigate the complexities of digital archives through digital geography scholarship with a thematic focus on the countryside and environment, inviting critical agrarian studies and political ecology scholars to reflect on the process of digitalizing archives. To encourage critical empirical and conceptual reflections on the power dynamics that shape spaces and politics through digital archives, we invite researchers, activists, artists, and the broader public to engage with themes that include, but are not limited to:
- Datafication;
- Data extractivism, data sovereignty, and data activism;
- Environmental data infrastructures;
- Land and cadastral archiving;
- Archiving from below; and
- AI and data visibility for rural communities.
This session invites papers that present research on digital geographies, critical agrarian studies, and the political ecology of archives. Contributions that go beyond traditional academic approaches, such as activist or artistic interventions, are also encouraged. While participation is open to all, we particularly welcome scholars from the Global South. The session will be held in a hybrid format, accommodating both in-person and online presentations to ensure access for those unable to travel to the US. If you are interested in participating, please contact Ricardo Barbosa Jr. (RiBarbosa at clarku.edu<mailto:RiBarbosa at clarku.edu>), Dr. Estevan Coca (estevan.coca at unifal-mg.edu.br<mailto:estevan.coca at unifal-mg.edu.br>), and Dr. Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre (gbarrera at berkeley.edu<mailto:gbarrera at berkeley.edu>). Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by October 30th.

References

Barbosa Jr, R., & Roriz, J. (2021). The subversive practice of counting bodies: Documenting violence and conflict in rural Brazil. Journal of Agrarian Change, 21(4), 870–886. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12416

Beel, D., Wallace, C., Webster, G., & Nguyen, H. (2015). The Geographies of Community History Digital Archives in Rural Scotland. Scottish Geographical Journal, 131(3–4), 201–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/14702541.2014.980839

Bressey, C. (2020). Surfacing black and brown bodies in the digital archive: Domestic workers in late nineteenth-century Australia. Journal of Historical Geography, 70, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2020.07.001

Hodder, J., & Beckingham, D. (2022). Digital archives and recombinant historical geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 46(6), 1298–1310. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221103603

Jardine, B., & Drage, M. (2019). The total archive: Data, subjectivity, universality. History of the Human Sciences, 31(5), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695118820806

Kominko, M. (Ed.). (2015). From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme. Open Book Publishers.

Koopman, S. (2016). Beware: Your Research May Be Weaponized. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(3), 530–535. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1145511

Percel, J. (2024). Hauntings of Absence and Erasure: Black Archival Practices of Property Data. Antipode, 56(6), 2368–2386. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13067

Ringel, S., & Ribak, R. (2024). Platformizing the Past: The Social Media Logic of Archival Digitization. Social Media + Society, 10(1), 20563051241228596. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241228596

Wainwright, J. (2013). Geopiracy: Oaxaca, Militant Empiricism, and Geographical Thought. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137301758

Withers, C. W. J. (2002). Constructing “The Geographical Archive.” Area, 34(3), 303–311.

Zaagsma, G. (2023). Digital History and the Politics of Digitization. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 38(2), 830–851. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqac050

Kind regards,

- Ricardo Barbosa, Jr.
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