Geographies of science and technology II: In the critical zone

Mahony, Martin

doi:10.1177/03091325211073142

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Driven by observable differences between lab and field processes, and by a sense that intellectual fragmentation falls short of current environmental challenges, Earth Scientists proposed CZS as an innovative field and lab-based combinatory science, potentially including ‘social and human sciences’ (Brantley, 2020; Minor et al, 2020). The idea is gaining traction beyond science as demonstrated by Bruno Latour’s and Peter Weibel’s latest exhibition cum-thought experiment, Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth (Latour and Weibel, 2020) and within geography by Martin Mahony’s (2022) discussion of the space-times of environmental science within this journal.…”

Section: The Critical Zone?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Cultural geographies II: In the critical zone? – Environments, landscapes and life

Hawkins

2023

Progress in Human Geography

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In this second review of recent cultural geography research, I use the concept of The Critical Zone (originally from US Geoscience) as a lens. The environment is far too voluminous a field of cultural geographic research to be surveyed here, but it is too significant a body of research to be overlooked. Here, three key dimensions of Critical Zone studies offer a means to navigate this work: (i) multi-scalar (temporal and spatial) considerations of matter, energy and forces; (ii) biotic and abiotic relations; and, (iii) a commitment to producing knowledge beyond disciplinary silos. Discussion explores each of these in turn before reflecting, to close, on what cultural geographical thought and practice might add to considerations of the criticality of the critical zone.

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Section: The Critical Zone?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Cultural geographies II: In the critical zone? – Environments, landscapes and life

Hawkins

2023

Progress in Human Geography

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“…Yet we might also consider how such ‘overview’ technologies assert spatial authority in more mundane, if equally far-reaching ways (Goldstein and Faxon 2022; Mahony 2022, 708; see also Jackman and Squire, 2021). The capacity of drones to see from above and record footage of humans and nonhumans alike makes them importance surveillance technologies – tools for collecting incriminating evidence but also for making humans feel watched.…”

Section: Fear: Volumetric Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between monitoring and surveillance: Geographies of emerging drone technologies in contemporary conservation

Millner,

Newport,

Sandbrook

et al. 2024

Progress in Environmental Geography

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Conservation has employed technologies for monitoring and visual capture since its inception in the nineteenth century. Since then, the capacities of conservation technologies have developed considerably, affording a wide range of data relating to ecological change and biodiversity loss. However, new technologies introduce fresh ethical and political issues into environmental protection, especially as they can be used – deliberately or accidentally – to collect information about human activities. This potential is important, given that many areas of biodiversity protection are also areas of longstanding conflict. We focus here on the political and ethical implications surrounding drones, which collect photographic and video footage that can include images of humans. We review approaches to technology, visuality, and surveillance across and beyond environmental geography over the last two decades, teasing out conceptual approaches that support a nuanced and critical analysis of conservation drones. Our analysis focuses on the ways that conservation drones alter (i) processes of decision-making, (ii) dynamics of fearmongering and control, (iii) processes of securitisation in protected areas, (iv) the production and circulation of (racial) stereotypes, and (v) the practices and outcomes of data justice. We unpack these themes through three case studies from our own fieldwork, clarifying the range of intentional and non-intentional political outcomes that emerge, and ethical themes that will be vital to explore further in the future.

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“…(Mahony, 2021) While interest (Mahony, 2022) in care as an (Atkinson et al, 2011: 563) aspect of the social life of science and technology is longstanding (Martin et al, 2015), the recent surge of interest coincides with a wider embrace of the concept across geography and the wider social sciences and humanities (Hanrahan and Smith, 2020). This embrace is undoubtedly a response to conjoined crises of environmental degradation, to the social and racial injustices magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, to growing political authoritarianism and state violence, and to transformations of practices of care wrought by new technologies and neoliberal politics.…”

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confidence: 99%

Geographies of science and technology III: Careful entanglements, responsible futures

Mahony

2023

Progress in Human Geography

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In my previous progress reports I suggested that geographers might attend more to the leaky boundaries of ‘science’ and ‘technology’ and to their imbrications in the mundane spaces of the everyday, and that stances of analytical critique might be joined by practices of engaged imagination of alternative lifeworlds in the shadow of the Anthropocene. In this final report, I zoom in on care as a ‘concept, emotion, practice, politics, moral exhortation’. This has recently provided a focus for much innovative and impactful research in critical geography. I explore the analytical and political potential of centring care within geographical engagements with science and technology, and suggest that nuanced engagements with the concept contain valuable insights into the everyday geographies of technoscience, and into how practices of care are central to – but not exhaustive of – political strategies for building alternative lifeworlds in uncertain times.

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Geographies of science and technology II: In the critical zone

Abstract: [in main file]

Cited by 3 publications

References 87 publications

Cultural geographies II: In the critical zone? – Environments, landscapes and life

Cultural geographies II: In the critical zone? – Environments, landscapes and life

Between monitoring and surveillance: Geographies of emerging drone technologies in contemporary conservation

Geographies of science and technology III: Careful entanglements, responsible futures

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