Fwd: [STS-Africa] INVITE | Technoscapes Guest Lecture by Jenny E. Goldstein | 4 Nov | 2pm to 3.30pm SAT / 3pm to 4:30pm CET / 9:00 to 10:30 EST | ONLINE

[Gianluca Miscione]

***Apologies for cross-posting***

Please distribute as you see fit.

Thanks,

Gianluca

 

 

Gianluca Miscione

University College Dublin Zurich University of Applied Sciences University of Zurich

Recent publications Organization InfrastructuresInnovation Development TrustMethodologies Geo HealthBlockchain Visibility EuropeAmericas Asia Africa Online

 

  

---------- Forwarded message ---------

Technoscapes invites to its 4^th and last Guest Lecture of this year by 

Jenny E. Goldstein (Cornell)

Title: Interstices in remote sensing: Scale, surveillance, and the role of strategic ignorance in Indonesia’s peatlands

Abstract: Knowledge claims generated through remote sensing technologies have become ubiquitous in expert monitoring of large-scale environmental change in out-of-the-way places. Satellite surveillance via remote sensing is also tasked with providing objective, ground-verifiable knowledge about large-scale environmental changes and harms, such as deforestation and wildfire. Yet people undertake ‘small-scale’ illicit forest-based activities that contribute to such environmental change, like selective logging, land burning, mining, sometimes with full awareness of this satellite surveillance. In doing so, they deliberately or incidentally take advantage of remote sensing’s blind spots and limitations. This is particularly the case in Indonesia’s peatlands, which are difficult to access on foot or by transport, making remote surveillance of these areas particularly attractive. Bringing together geographical literature on scale, sociology of knowledge on strategic ignorance, and recent work on illicit agrarian activities, I argue that there is a strategic ignorance of and as rural resistance that emerges in the gap between large-scale environmental monitoring and small-scale illicit activities. I show this by drawing on ethnographic research from Indonesia’s peatlands, where smallholders and small-scale miners practicing illicit activities both use and produce ignorance to evade satellite detection in forested and semi-forested areas.

Respondents: Vera Ehrenstein, Meredith Root-Bernstein

November 4, Friday, 
2pm to 3.30pm SAT / 3pm to 4:30pm CET / 9:00 to 10:30 EST

Register for this event:  https://wits-za.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqceyurjMtHtOJxEAFDZ5wy_tl1XT2lREk

 

This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.