[EASST-Eurograd] Call for Papers: RGS-IBG 2026 Critical Remote Sensing

[Meissner, Fran (UT-ITC) via Eurograd]

Dear List Members interested in critical remote sensing. With Apologies for cross posting.

 

 

Call for Papers:  RGS-IBG 2026 (2-4 September 2026, London, UK / Hybrid)

 

Orbiting and Hovering: Critical Remote Sensing and Volumetric Regimes

Organisers: Fran Meissner (University of Twente); Andreas Braun (University of Kassel), & Mia Bennett (University of Washington)

 

The use of remote sensing technologies, including drones and earth observation sensors, is increasingly becoming part of how we map, monitor, track, measure and regulate various environmental and social challenges. Accompanying this growing relevance of remote sensing have been calls for work critiquing the epistemological foundations and the use of remote sensing technologies (Kroth 2025; Lappe et al. 2025). Critical remote sensing, as such an approach is called, accounts for the politics of sensing practices and infrastructures by attending to how they both shape inequalities and injustices and how they can be used to counter them. A growing number of scholars appeal to critical remote sensing by questioning the politics and everyday implications of the volumetric regimes that earth observation and other remote sensing techniques produce (Goodchild et al. 2022). Situated at the crossroads of political geography and many other fields including (urban) security studies (Klauser 2021), environmental modelling (Braun 2024), land use management (Paris 2025), biodiversity research (Milner et al. 2023) and many more, critical remote sensing is currently marked by disparate networks scattered across numerous domains.

 

This RGS-IBG session aims to bring together critical remote sensing scholars to more proactively collaborate and network. The session invites scholars whose work examines and critically evaluates the use of remote sensing data and infrastructures to engage in open and collaborative discussions. While the scope of the track is intentionally open, abstracts should link to remote sensing and focus on questions such as:

 

• What role does remote sensing play in amplifying and silencing different knowledges?
• How does remote sensing contribute to processes of modulating (urban) environments?
• How can we study and make sense of volumetric regimes that link technologies in earth's orbit to local practices of sense making?
• How does remote sensing play into ongoing crisis narratives and what can we learn from this about sustainability and digital transitions?
• What would practices of counter-remote sensing look like and how could they be realized?
• What are the geopolitical dimensions and implications of remote sensing?
• What role do remote sensing technologies play in creating new scientific ties between public, private and academic partners?
• What epistemological foundations is remote sensing built on and what is missing?

 

Our panel will accommodate traditional research presentations concerning ongoing and planned research. We also welcome alternative presentation formats. We will aim for a hybrid panel to facilitate global discussions and aim to accompany the sessions with informally organised networking activities.

 

To be considered for the session, please submit a single document containing the following information:

• Your name, affiliation and contact details
• A 250-300 word abstract
• Information about your intended contribution (paper presentation / other format)
• Preference for in-person or hybrid

 

Please email your submission to f.mei...@utwente.nl with the subject: RGS-IBG 2026 submission by 22 February 2026.

 

Before submitting, please check the guidelines for participation in RGS-IBG. Kindly note that participants are limited to one paper presentation and one panel/workshop contribution, or two panel/workshop contributions.

 

References:

Braun, A. C. (2024). More accurate less meaningful? Why quality indicators do not unveil the socio-technical practices inscribed into land use maps. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 48(3), 343–367. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091333241248055

Goodchild, M., Appelbaum, R., Crampton, J., Herbert, W., Janowicz, K., Kwan, M.-P., Michael, K., Alvarez León, L., Bennett, M., Cole, D., Currier, K., Fast, V., Hirsch, J., Kattenbeck, M., Kedron, P., Kerski, J., Liu, Z., Nelson, T., Shulruff, T., … Langham, G. (2022). A White Paper on Locational Information and the Public Interest. American Association of Geographers. https://doi.org/10.14433/2017.0113

Klauser, F. (2021). Police Drones and the Air: Towards a Volumetric Geopolitics of Security. Swiss Political Science Review, 27(1), 158–169. https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12431

Kroth, L. (2025). Remote sensing and feminist critique: Reappropriations of sensing across distance. Environment and Planning F, 4(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825241283838

Lappe, R., Calovi, M., & Winther, H. (2025). The view from somewhere: What remote sensing still has to learn about the satellite gaze. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 03091333251409690. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091333251409690

Millner, N., Cunliffe, A. M., Mulero-Pázmány, M., Newport, B., Sandbrook, C., & Wich, S. (2023). Exploring the opportunities and risks of aerial monitoring for biodiversity conservation. Global Social Challenges Journal, 2(1), 2–23. https://doi.org/10.1332/TIOK6806

Paris, R. G. (2025). Imperial forms of territorialisation and the emergence of middle-scale farms in the Nacala Development Corridor in Mozambique. Territory Politics Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2025.2517745