The matter of ‘virtual’ geographies
Abstract
Geographers have long wrestled with the spatial characteristics of digital mediation. In this regard, ‘the virtual’ as somehow other and immaterial has proven a persistent trope. The aim here is to argue for a greater attention to the material conditions of the digital. This article revisits the articulation of ‘virtual’ geographies and reviews recent discussion of digitally mediated activity. To materially address ‘the virtual’, the fundamental relationship between humans and technology is investigated as ‘technics’, using recent work in the geographies and philosophy of technology. Observations are made about how this may inform broader understandings of spatiality and culture.
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The inability of data subjects to access their personal data creates significant injustices of maldistribution in which corporations accumulate vast stockpiles of economically valuable personal data, enabled by strategies of dispossession.
“the inability of data subjects to access their personal data creates significant injustices of maldistribution in which corporations are able to accumulate vast stockpiles of economically valuable personal data, enabled by strategies of dispossession which obfuscate the digital realm's materiality”
From Social Injustice in Surveillance Capitalism (2017) · cites this paper as Kinsley 2014
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References 156 · Cited by 313
- Authors
- Kinsley, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Kinsley, Samuel
- ORCID
- Kinsley, Samuel
- Venue
- Progress in Human Geography
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-10-17
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 364-384
- ISSN
- 0309-1325 (ISSN-L)
- 1477-0288
- OpenAlex
- W2005997973
- Cited by
- 313
- References
- 156
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 101.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Progress in Human Geography (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Spatial and Cultural Studies
- Social Sciences › Communication › Cultural Studies and Postmodernism
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Geographic Information Systems Studies
- Keywords
- virtual geography, digital mediation, technics, human-technology relationship, philosophy of technology, spatiality, digital culture
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