On the emergence of digital volumetric space: Geophysical prospecting and the American oilfield in the early 20th century

IF 3.4 2区 社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY
John Kendall
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Abstract

Geographical scholarship of the ‘digital turn’ has refuted the suggestion that digital technologies produce a utopian ‘cyberspace’ capable of transcending its material attachments. The image of a frictionless ‘digital world,’ it is argued, merely masks the uneven social and material relationships conditioning that world’s possibility. While this is essential criticism, I offer in this paper some reasons for hesitation in collapsing digital space into material practices too quickly. Abstractions may always be attached to their social and material conditions of possibility, but this does not mean that these things are the same. I develop this insight further in the context of the ‘volumetric turn,’ which has analogously criticized geographers for remaining fixated on surficial formalism while neglecting consideration of the dynamic, material capacities of volumetric space. While again heeding this equally important warning, I question the limits of dynamism as a volumetric analytic insofar as, much like digital technology, this notion can easily be fetishized. In turn, I suggest that these dynamic capacities can be more productively theorized in relation, rather than opposed, to formalistic abstraction, as both are constituent elements of volumetric space. I explore these theoretical considerations through a historical geography of early 20th-century geophysical prospecting in American oilfields, where prospectors produced spatial knowledge that was simultaneously dynamic and formal, material and abstract. In turn, this case study serves to show how the relations between material practices and processes of abstraction can be a fruitful meeting point for theories of digital and volumetric space.

数字体积空间的出现:地球物理勘探与 20 世纪初的美国油田
关于 "数字转向 "的地理学术研究驳斥了这样一种说法,即数字技术产生了一个乌托邦式的 "网络空间",能够超越其物质附着物。他们认为,一个无摩擦的 "数字世界 "的形象只是掩盖了不平衡的社会和物质关系,而这种不平衡的社会和物质关系制约着这个世界的可能性。虽然这是很有必要的批评,但我在本文中提出了一些理由,让我们在过快地将数字空间归结为物质实践时有所犹豫。抽象概念可能总是依附于其社会和物质条件的可能性,但这并不意味着这些东西是相同的。我在 "体积转向"(volumetric turn)的背景下进一步阐释了这一观点。"体积转向 "批评地理学家仍然固守表面形式主义,而忽视了对体积空间的动态物质能力的考虑。我再次注意到这一同样重要的警告,同时质疑动态作为体积分析方法的局限性,因为与数字技术一样,这一概念很容易被迷信化。反过来,我建议将这些动态能力与形式主义抽象理论联系起来,而不是对立起来,因为两者都是体积空间的构成要素。我通过对 20 世纪初美国油田地球物理勘探的历史地理研究来探讨这些理论考虑因素,在那里,勘探者创造了同时具有动态和形式、物质和抽象特征的空间知识。反过来,这一案例研究也有助于说明物质实践与抽象过程之间的关系如何能够成为数字和体积空间理论的一个富有成果的交汇点。
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来源期刊
Geoforum
Geoforum GEOGRAPHY-
CiteScore
7.30
自引率
5.70%
发文量
201
期刊介绍: Geoforum is an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy and environment, through national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, local economic and urban planning and resources management. The journal also includes a Critical Review section which features critical assessments of research in all the above areas.
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