The NeoTards Enter the Den of the PaleoTards: GeoWeb at the AAG

One of the biggest gatherings of geo-folks around is the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) with over 8,000 geographers, GIS specialists, and environmental scientists (aka PaleoTards).

I went to my first AAG conference in the spring of 1998 in Boston as a new Geography grad student at University of Florida. I had been broadly researching the geography of the Internet and collecting data on what cities were physically connected to big bandwidth pipes and which were not. At the conference I met a group of other grad students also interested in what the geography of the Internet and cyberspace looked like. Martin Dodge from the University College London (CASA) had a session going on the topic and I had the chance to meet up with Matt Zook from Cal Berkley and Anthony Townsend from NYU as well. We’ve all stayed in touch since and have collaborated on random projects along the way – today Anthony works for the Institute for the Future, Matt is professor at the University of Kentucky, and Martin is a professor at the University of Manchester.

Martin and Matt have put together a provocative session for AAG called “Is Google Good for Geography?“. I agreed to be the GeoWeb punching bag (a.k.a NeoTard) and take on the masses of PaleoTards converging on the AAG. What I find most exciting about this session is it is not just traditional GIS vs. GeoWeb, but also the potential detrimental impacts of the political economy created by the GeoWeb. What are the implications of massive corporations like Google and Microsoft shaping how the public perceives geography? There is heavy fear of corporate control of geographic data amongst Geographers, and trepidation about what the implications are for academic research and the potential for hegemonic tendencies and disenfranchisement of under represented groups. We experienced a bit of this when one such article called us out for corporate control of data with GeoCommons. This got me exceedingly irritated at the time since all the data in GeoCommons is released under Creative Commons with attribution, but that is another story

While there are many good points to be made of possible abuse through the emerging GeoWeb I think the discipline of Geography has missed an opportunity to help shape it as a tool to educate the world about Geography. The debate whether “Google (a.k.a the GeoWeb) is good for Geography” should be a great session and if anyone happens to be in Vegas for it definitely drop in for the fun.

There is another interesting session being run by Digital Urban in association with Dr Andrew Crooks of CASA entitled “Concepts, Tools and Applications: The Rise of Neogeography“. Yet another session in the GeoComputation track entitled “NeoGeography Tools – What next?“. If anyone knows of any additional sessions being organized with a GeoWeb component please pass them along.

In my opinion it is great to see recognition of the emergence of the GeoWeb in Geography and the beginning of a healthy debate on its implications. In the past there has been critique of the GeoWeb and discussion of how it can be included in emerging Geography research agendas, but with the 2009 meeting there looks to be real dialogue and incorporation.