Critical computation on a geographical register

Abstract

This commentary lays out a framework for building on early critical cartographic and critical geographic information system work to develop a critical approach for the computational future of geographical thought and praxis. Computation – as a highly representational and structural form which combines speech and action – is a very particular way of building worlds. As computation becomes more prevalent in critiques of deep fakes, GeoAI, and platform geographies, geographers have also developed the foundations for a critical computational approach with an explicitly spatial or geographical focus that combines both theory and practice. Yet, while many of the technological affordances of spatial computation are relatively novel, the critiques raised by social, political, economic, and cultural geographers shadow debates that emerged two decades ago between cartographers and geospatial scientists about the power and praxis of mapping as it becomes translated into a digital era. This commentary argues that by returning to these debates, as well as critique by Black, queer, and Indigenous computing seen in other disciplines, geographers find themselves in a moment of opportunity to deeply influence the future of computation via a situated, critical geographical thought and praxis.