Call for Conference Proposals

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 30: OPEN CALL FOR PAPERS- AND/OR PEDAGOGICAL RESOURCES

Innovative and Ethical Practices and Pedagogies in the Social Sciences: Geospatial Data, Validity, and Fairness

Virtual Workshop: January 18-19, 2024

NEWS: The conference will be hybrid! Please join us at the FIU MMC Campus if you are in Miami! :)

This conference will contribute to advancing knowledge on the complexity of ethical issues associated with the recent shifting nature of geospatial data (i.e., crowdsourced data generated by amateur mappers, continuous location data recorded by smartphones and smart city applications, publicly available open geospatial data by authoritative government agencies). Validity and fairness are increasingly challenging to manage and evaluate. For example, algorithms used to search, compile, generate, analyze, and visualize data designed by big tech companies concerned about their capital accumulation become increasingly opaque and disregard citizens’ interests. Our workshop contributes to the growing literature on critical data studies, data rights, data justice, data activism, Indigenous data sovereignty, and feminist data studies focused on unearthing and counterbalancing the uneven effects of unfair and invalid data practices that are ubiquitous with data accumulation in society.

Additionally, our conference contributes to reducing the disconnection between the rapid changes in geospatial technologies and geospatial data practices and the relatively slow development of corresponding pedagogical approaches. To advance theories and pedagogies in geospatial data science ethics, our conference answers critical GIScience scholars’ call to focus on interdisciplinarity. This workshop aims to generate an in-depth discussion on the challenges of academia’s siloed boundaries and corporations’ control in geospatial data science with an overt emphasis on ethical engagement and engaged citizenry.

The conference will bring together scholars in critical GIScience, geography, education, linguistics, humanities, social sciences, Indigenous studies, community groups, and NGOs. Specifically, the workshop focuses on pedagogical strategies to teach the ethical aspects of validity and fairness in geospatial data collection, analytics and analysis, and visualization in various fields related to GIScience. We seek contributions addressing pressing challenges in the context of constant and rapid technological advancements, such as balancing technological and technical learning with conceptual, ethical, valid, and fair knowledge production.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

This workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation. Across 2 days, the workshop will chart innovative conceptual directions and pedagogical resources. The first day will include presentations from keynote speakers and a panel discussion. The organizing committee will then introduce the four workshop sessions for the next day. The second day will consist of four open forums where participants will share works in progress (in a short 10 min. presentation) and get feedback on draft papers and pedagogical resources. At the end of the day, we will regroup to share concluding remarks across the four workshops. We hope to have about 45 people in attendance.

WORKSHOP OUTPUTS

The workshop will produce a rich collection of outputs. (1) We will host pedagogical material on our webpage in an open-access repository with an assigned DOI. (2) We will also record some of the talks and host the recordings with an assigned DOI on the webpage. (3) We will later compile papers in an edited collection such as a journal special issue or book.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We will have four workshop sessions on the following themes:

  1. Critical education, social justice theories, intersectional feminist approaches, and ethics in the classroom
  2. Community and citizen-engaged approaches to knowledge production
  3. Interdisciplinary approaches to rewiring geospatial technologies and data visualizations
  4. Indigenous geospatial data sovereignty, Indigenous methodologies, and Indigenous pedagogies

We welcome papers and pedagogical resources contributions at any stage of development.

Submit an abstract and presentation title to https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/ethicaldata by November 1st, 2023. Please indicate the following, (1) which contribution you wish to develop, paper or pedagogical resource, (2) which theme your contribution best fits, (3) a title, a 250-word abstract of the paper or summary of a pedagogical resource, and a list of keywords, and (4) a brief bio under 100 words.

At this time, we are not collecting any additional files. If your submission is accepted (decisions will be sent by November 15), you will have the opportunity to upload documents (i.e., PowerPoint presentation, full paper) to share with the other presenters in the workshop and publish online. Additional information will be sent in the decision letter.

The organizing committee:
Dr. Genevieve Reid, Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University
Dr. Kevin Grove, Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University
Dr. Aaron Kuntz, School of Education and Human Development, Florida International University
Dr. Phillip M. Carter, Department of English/Center for Humanities in Urban Environment, Florida
Dr. Diana Ter-Ghazaryan, Spatial Sciences Institute, University of Southern California
Dr. Derrick Scott, Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University

Coordinator:
Tempestt Morgan, College of Arts, Sciences & Education, Florida International University

Contact:
Dr. Genevieve Reid:

Acknowledgement of Support: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2226961.

Co-Sponsors: Mellon-funded FIU ‘Common for Justice’

The Sociology, Anthropology, and GeographyGraduate Student Association (SAGGSA), Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies, FIU

Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.