Link to Session Platform

Chairs(s):

Ingrid Nelson, University of Vermont

; ,

Description:

We are feminist political ecology (FPE) scholars wondering how feminist perspectives might shift emerging scholarship on digital natures towards asking different types of questions. Environmental geographers, political ecologists and others are studying the use of digital technologies in environmental monitoring, management and conservation, examining their effects on economies, cultural politics and environment governance (see Büscher, 2016 on Nature 2.0, Bakker and Ritts, 2018 on Smart Earth). While digital natures scholarship includes some work on inter-species digital embodiment, scale, online violence, activism and data justice (e.g. Hawkins and Silver, 2017, Nelson, 2017, Lunstrum 2017; Tait and Nelson 2021; Walker et al., 2018), we think that large gaps remain. Exciting scholarship is emerging in the field of critical and feminist digital geographies that asks questions about power, bodies, technologies and space (See, for example: Elwood and Leszczynski (2018) on feminist digital geographies, Cockayne and Richardson (2017) on queering code/space, Jefferson (2020) on race, space and technology and Hunt and Stevenson (2017) on indigenous digital countermapping). As digital nature interventions proliferate, we see a need for multi-scalar and embodied examinations of their power dynamics. The aim of this virtual AAG paper session is to connect scholars working at the intersection of feminist theory and digital natures. Note: We initially planned this session for the AAG 2020 meeting, but cancelled it in the context of the pandemic.

Non-Presenting Participants Agenda