Excited to see this new piece with @mattzook in the Annals of @theAAG. We look at the concept of space, taking inspiration from 1960s spatial science to sketch an alternative vision on the use of ‘smart’ technology in geography today. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="📄" title="Page facing up" aria-label="Emoji: Page facing up">: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2019.1674630">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/... /1

Many spatial scientists have thought deeply about non-Euclidean approaches to space – e.g. using map transformations + graph theory. But this engagement stalls w/ the emergence of GIS in the 1980s, whose dominance hampered further exploration of these different approaches. /2

In recent years, we see a renewed interest in relational conceptualizations of space https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👍" title="Thumbs up sign" aria-label="Emoji: Thumbs up sign">. We highlight recent work by @kyts, @seth_sp & Thill, and Lally & Bergmann + many others. /3

Fortunately, geographers are now increasingly building and maintaining our own software platforms instead of relying on commercial software. Initiatives like @pysal_devs, #rspatial and @qgis have gained critical mass in our education and research praxis https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💪" title="Flexed biceps" aria-label="Emoji: Flexed biceps">. /4

But we should ensure that new computational approaches allow/guide us to think beyond the Euclidean space that is so embedded in our discipline. Experiments like Lally and Bergmann’s enfolding prototype push the envelope: https://github.com/FoldingSpace/enfolding">https://github.com/FoldingSp... /5

Critiques around ‘smart’ technologies are well-founded. But these new comp. approaches are an important step to combine critical theory and quant methods, enabling us to explore ‘the most versatile, and (potentially) relevant data sets on social space that we& #39;ve ever had’. /6

Postscript: many geographers have made similar arguments in the past, including @meipokwan and @TimSchwanen’s calls for a critical quant geography a decade ago: https://doi.org/10.1080/00330120902931903.">https://doi.org/10.1080/0... Hope the current moment provides additional impetus to push things further in this direction.