Anticipating Blockchain for Development: Data, Power and the Future

In this post, Margie Cheesman, the CII group’s new anthropologist, tells us about her background research and doctoral interests, which are at the intersection of digital infrastructures and international development. Can blockchains and other distributed ledger technologies deliver significant social… Continue Reading

An Informational Right to the City? Code, Content, Control, and the Urbanization of Information – New Paper

After much work, many discussions, a lot of writing and rewriting, and many many presentations around the world, Joe Shaw and I have our ‘Informational Right to the City’ article in print. An Informational Right to the City? Code, Content,… Continue Reading

The geography of Wikipedia edits

Wikipedia has a geography. This is something that my colleagues and I have explored previously in a variety of scholarship. For a new book on ‘Open Development’,my colleague Stefano De Sabbata and I decided to update our most recent paper about… Continue Reading

Pokémon Go and the Need to Critically Consider Augmented Realities

Pokémon Go is currently taking the world by storm. The game uses smartphones to overlay the material world with digital elements, encouraging users to travel around to different places in order to progress in the game. The addictive gameplay has… Continue Reading

Can virtual workers strike? Book chapter on identity and collective action in microwork

I’ve posted online a pre-print version of my upcoming chapter in Space, place and global digital work, edited by Jörg Flecker (Palgrave-Macmillan 2016). The chapter is titled Algorithms That Divide and Unite: Delocalization, Identity, and Collective Action in ‘Microwork’. I… Continue Reading

CfP at AAG 2016: An Informational Right to the City? Rethinking the Production, Consumption, and Governance of Digital Geographic Information

After presenting our paper on the same theme at ICCG 2015 in Palestine, myself and Mark Graham are planning a session for the Association of American Geographers’ annual meeting in San Francisco during Spring 2016. The session aims to provide… Continue Reading

New Video – ‘Code, Content, and Control: Global Geographies of Digital Participation and Representation’

The Open University has just posted a webcast presentation of our paper due to be delivered at ICCG 2015 this July. Titled “Code, Content, and Control: Global Geographies of Digital Participation and Representation”, it deals with the role of Google… Continue Reading

Interview on the Guardian’s Tech Weekly about the Power of Digital Maps

This week’s Guardian Tech Weekly podcast covers the topic of Google Maps’ 10 year anniversary. I was interviewed on the programme and asked to speak about why internet geographies matter. I spoke about the need to think about the digital… Continue Reading