Digital Geographies Research Group

Digital Geographies Research Group The official YouTube channel of the Digital Geographies Research Group (DGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers).

If you missed the symposium, check out #DGRGSymposium2025 for posts & keep an eye on our YouTube account where we'll be sharing recordings www.youtube.com/@digitalgeog...

And find out more about our @rgs-ibghe.bsky.social Research Group via digitalgeographiesrg.org

3/3 #DGRGSymposium2025

a penguin says well done in white letters on a white background Alt: a pale blue and white penguin says well done in white letters on a white background. The gif shows the penguin clapping

And a huge thank you to this year's incredible organising committee: @june-wang.bsky.social, @adammpacker.bsky.social, @tessosborne.bsky.social, Sammia Poveda, Harrison Smith, @samkinsley.uk, & @livfletcher.bsky.social, & all the session chairs!

2/3 #DGRGSymposium2025

The top half of the image features text stating: Global Digital Geographies: Digitalising the Territorial/ Territorialising the Digital which is in white font. Below in black font is the text: Annual Symposium Digital Geographies Research Group 19-20 June 2025 online. In the bottom half of the image is a map of the world in a blue and purple tint. Various digital symbols are placed on top of the map such as smartphones, sensors, location pins, satellites, and submarine cables. In the bottom right hand corner is the RGS logo and the City University of Hong Kong logo. The background of the image is a graduated purple to white colouring with purple at the top and white at the bottom of the image.

Last week was our Global Digital Geographies Symposium with speakers from China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, South Africa, Iran, the US, UK & more making it our most international symposium! Thank you to everyone who presented work, attended sessions, & discussed emerging ideas 1/3
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Zoom screenshot: showing 5 speakers: left to right: Jack Lowe (chair) who is wearing a grey tshirt and white earphones with a blurred background, Azadeh Akbari who is wearing a white tshirt and has a blurred background, Norma Möllers who is wearing a black top and wearing glasses with a background partially showing a bookshelf, Sam Kinsley who is wearing a white shirt, glasses, and headphones with a blurred background, Mirjam de Bruijn who is wearing a dark blue top and with a bookshelf in the background.

We're now having a very rich discussion between the panel speakers thinking about overlapping themes and interests including conceptualisations of space, bodies, and scales of power

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Zoom screenshot: to the right is an image of Norma Möllers who is wearing a black top, glasses, and hoop earrings. In the background there is a bookshelf. To the left is a presentation slide showing the title 'state of extraction' written in green on a black slide

Next is Norma Möllers discussing state violence, digital & infrastructural practices via a focus on privatisation of data extraction in spaces of policing, borders, and war. Norma asks the question about the future of just data in a context of eroding digital sovereignty & racism
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Zoom screenshot: to the right is an image of Sam Kinsley wearing a white shirt, glasses, and headphones. The background is blurred. To the left is the title presentation slide: troubling realities: Thinking space for digital geographies

Drawing on his work thinking about space @samkinsley.uk proposes a way of thinking in/with space for digital geographers. Sam argues for a pluralistic approach to spacings and understanding how spatial vocabularies & grammars are used: as verb, metaphor, physical imaginary, & more #DGRGSymposium2025

screenshot of zoom meeting: to the right is an image of Mirjam de Bruijn who is wearing a dark top, drop earrings, and glasses. In the background is a bookshelf. To the left the title slide from the presentation with a title: African Mobile Communities and an image from Mirjam's research

Next is Mirjam de Bruijn presenting on African Mobile Communities & discusses a range of processes she researches including Cameroonian mobile societies, e-mobilisation in Chad, & e-conflict in West Africa. Such mobilisation of people occurs within the digital beyond the state

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A zoom screenshot: to the right an image of Azadeh who is wearing a white top and to the left is a screenshot of the presentation slide about authoritarian smart city

First speaker is @azadehakbari.bsky.social discussing Authoritarian Smart Cities focusing on the politics of smart cities via digital development dilemma and authoritarianism. Tech is evolving but securitisation continues & we must consider discourse, practices, infrastructures
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We're now starting our afternoon panel session for #DGRGSymposium2025 with some excellent speakers joining us!

Zoom screenshot: to the right are two images of speakers at the top is Rani Mandelbaum with long hair and a dark coloured top and in the background an image of mountains and water. Below is Oren Yiftachel wearing a blue shirt and a glasses. The background is blurred. To the left is a presentation slide showing a map and buildings of Innovation District Be'er-Sheva

Next Oren Yiftachel and Rani Mandelbaum present Smart and/or Just Metropolis? Stratified Digital Citizenship in Beersheba. They are exploring how digitalisation challenges ideas of the just city via data, infrastructure, economic-social, power/politics.
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Zoom screenshot: to the right an image of Tom Narins who is wearing a dark red tshirt and glasses. The background is a door and a white wall. To the left is a title slide showing author details, a map of Africa with the Chinese flag, and the title: Placing Africa along China’s Global Development Trajectory: From the Belt and Road Initiative to Chinese Platform Capitalism

Tom Nairns presents on Placing Africa along China’s Global Development Trajectory: From the Belt and Road Initiative to Chinese Platform Capitalism. Arguing maps tend to show romanticised continuity of the Belt & Road initiative from the Silk Road but is now more Africa-leaning
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Zoom screenshot: to the right an image of Qinyu Feng who is wearing a brown tshirt and glasses. The background is blurred. To the left is a conclusions slide outlining key points about spatial reorganisation and surveillance theories

Next Next Qinyu Feng presents Hybrid Territorialism: Spatial Differentiation and Digital Control in China’s Surveillance System. China's surveillance system is shown as a multi-scalar, socio-technical assemblage that spans physical and digital spaces with spatial reorganisation

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Zoom screenshot: to the right is an image of Max who is wearing a striped tshirt and headphones. The background is a wall and window. To the left is a presentation slide showing the title: rethinking embeddedness? Limits to the Regulations of Digital Capitalism

This afternoon Max Münßinger discusses Rethinking Embeddedness? Limits to the Regulations of Digital Capitalism In a review of literature Max shows researcher tendency to territorialise abstract ideas of global digital capitalism through ideas of embeddedness #DGRGSymposium2025

Zoom screenshot: to the right Anton is represented by a letter A with a bright pink background and the A in a white font. To the left is a presentation slide showing the title Analysis of the 19th Congress of the Philippines Through Digital Tools

Anton Pascual presents Analysis of the 19th Congress of the Philippines Through Digital Tools. Anton examines legislative hearings & actions via Natural Language Processing showing government concerns e.g health & education but no mention of corruption raising questions on action

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Thumbnail of presenter with discussion of Google maps, Yandex Maps and Instagram

Next Ayşe Gizem Kılıç and Fatih Eren with their presentation 'Spatial Reflection of Immigrant Density on Digital Platforms and Its Effects on Urban Planning' which discusses how digital platforms shape the spatial traces of immigrant populations and regional development #DGRGSymposium2025

Zoom screenshot: on right image of Omer who is wearing a white shirt and has short hair. The background is blurred. To the left is a presentation slide outlining conclusion on kill switch, private actors, and rethinking digital sovereignty

Omer Ozturk discusses Kill Switch as a Geopolitical Technique: Power, Disruption, and Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Infrastructure. Kills switches are strategic interruption & preventive e.g. Starlink in Ukraine. Raising questions on who decides how & when infrastructure works
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Presenter in thumbnail with PowerPoint screen showing unrecognised villages representing themselves in the digital space

Next, Batel Yossef Ravid and Erez Tzfadia give the presentation 'Rescaling Digital Sovereignty: Digital Technologies and the Politics of Territory in Unrecognized Bedouin Villages'. They look at digital displacement and sumud in unrecognised Bedouin villages and politics of territory. #DGRGSymposium

Zoom screenshot: on right is an image of Katrina who is wearing a black top and glasses and has long blonde hair. The background is blurred. To the left is an image of the presentation slide which shows two houses with Swedish and Finnish flags and a person sitting looking at a laptop by each house. The two people and houses are divided by a road which is fractured showing the border.

Next Katrina Gaber discusses Online bordering: (Re)creating national borders in digital spaces. Examining how differing policies during Covid-19 from Sweden and Finland created tensions which materialised in online discussions and redrew social borders creating bottom up bordering
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Our second day of #DGRGSymposium2025 was begun this morning by our fantastic keynote - Iginio Gagliardone with his talk 'Digital sovereignty and networked sovereignty. A perspective from Africa'

shared powerpoint screen with discussion of the project and the thumbnail of the presenter

Next up we've got @ronene.bsky.social with his presentation 'Digital Borderlands: Technological Transformation and Territorial Politics in Divided Jerusalem' discussing how Jerusalem's implementation of digital systems
and practices for urban governance
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zoom call screenshot: to the right is an image of Anu who is wearing a white shirt and glasses. The background is a book shelf. To the left is a presentation slide on data migration research agenda outlining mechanisms, theoretical approach, directions

In session 2:1 Anu Masso is presenting on Social Data Migration: Conceptualising Transborder Data Flows as Processes of Social Transformation. Anu proposes the concept social data migration to better understand technical, economic, political, & socio-cultural dynamics
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Shared PowerPoint screen which shows a figure which shows the reshaping of spatial practice by mobile digital platforms and a thumbnail of presenter

First up in this session, we’ve got Pauline Baudens, with her presentation ‘Reshaping of Women’s Mobility in Highly Constrained Urban Contexts’ discussing how women’s spatial practices are reshaped by the digital, and how experiences of empowerment are shaped by the digital #DGRGSymposium2025

Welcome to the second day of @dgrgrgs.bsky.social symposium 🎉✨ we kick off this morning with a fantastic presentation from Iginio Gagliardone talking about ‘Digital sovereignty and networked sovereignty. A perspective from Africa’ ✨🙌

Thank you so much to our fantastic keynotes, presenters and thoughtful interlocutors for a very stimulating first day of #DGRGSymposium2025 ! We look forward to a full programme in our second and final day tomorrow

Finally, but by no means least(!): Carwyn Morris (SOAS), closed a fascinating first day of the symposium, sharing his work with Yuchen Chen (CUNY) on: 'Xiaohongshu as an Infrastructure: Platforms as infrastructures of Global China'
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Our third panellist Prof Alex Preda (Lingnan University), shared his work on: 'The Data-Machine Duality' - 'the concept of "data" and "machine" appear as loosely connected but without clear link...
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Jordan Branch (Claremont McKenna College), reflected on: 'Representing Digital Territories' and gave a taste of the forthcoming book 'Virtual Territories'!
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Prof Paul Adams (University of Texas at Austin) kicked off the discussion with his presentation: 'State Sovereignty and Personal Sovereignty in an Era of Digital Media'
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In our final discussion of the first day of #DGRGSymposium2025 we had a panel of distinguished scholars addressing a range of themes concerning territory, sovereignty, infrastructures and ontological politics

Our final presentation of this session, Maja Warlich (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) shares her Master's work on: 'The Race for LEO. Fragmented Futures of Satellite Internet'
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