Presenter: Alistair Fraser, Department of Geography, Maynooth University, Ireland.
Organizer: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University.

Abstract

The focus of this seminar is on the intersection of digital geographies research on resistance and the planetary struggle for land; an intersection I examine for the sake of asking what moves to ‘hack the land’ might entail. Research on the digital geographies of resistance – co-existing with fields such as critical data studies – emphasizes the urgency of paying attention to the digitalization of practices and processes of resistance: organizing to strike, to boycott, or occupy is now infused with digital technologies. Some of the novel ideas and initiatives emerging in this area are relevant for thinking about the planetary struggle for land, which I argue is concerned with responding to a nihilistic regime of capitalist accumulation creating runaway material inequality and dangerous environmental change. Digital technologies including AI amplify this regime when they are deployed by ‘ag-tech’ firms to grab data via practices akin to data colonialism. Draw upon the notion of the ’hack’ as a practice capable of disrupting, overturning, and controlling a digital entity or system, I ask how the dynamics of the planetary struggle for land might be altered if an effort can be made to ‘hack the land.’ What would such an effort entail? And how can research on digital geographies of resistance help us understand its construction and formulation?

Further reading

Fraser, A. (2022) Up in the air: the challenge of conceptualizing and crafting a post-carbon planetary politics to confront climate change. Journal of Peasant Studies. doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2113779 

Fraser A. (2021) ‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming. Journal of Rural Studies. doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.010

Fraser A. (2019) Curating digital geographies in an era of data colonialism. Geoforum. doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.04.027

Biography

Alistair Fraser is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, Ireland. His current research is focused on the connections between digital life, foodscapes, and agrarian change. He is the author of Global Foodscapes: Oppression and Resistance in the Life of Food (Routledge, 2017) and the co-author with Rob Kitchin of Slow Computing: Why we need balanced digital lives (Bristol University Press, 2020). Other works include articles in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Rural Studies, Geoforum, and Environment & Planning A.