Digital Geographies―Urbanisation, Economy, and Modelling: A Machine-Generated Literature Review

This machine-generated volume, with chapter introductions by the human expert, of summaries of the existing studies furthers our understanding of the impact of digitalisation on spaces, their imaginations and representations. It brings out the digital territorial and socio-economic digital modelling and representation methods. The virtual spaces, created by GIS, photoshopping, games, etc., have become an area of interest for many as they produce spatial imaginaries having social, political and individual consequences. It delves into the literature on digital capitalism and how it is giving birth to a new mode of expansionary capitalism to reap the surplus values and profits from peripheries and drain the same to the core. It shows how digitalisation has enabled enterprises to operate from a virtual space with strong spatial networks. Mega digital enterprises together control a trillion-dollar economy having massive consequences for digital labour, welfare of consumers, and development geographies.

This book explores some critical questions while generating summaries of existing literature: How do imaginaries, models or virtual realities help us comprehend spatialities? How does capitalism relate to digitalism, and with what consequences? How do the cities and mobilities relate to digitalisation? What are the possibilities of re-configuring the man-environmental relations with digital technologies in view of rising pollution and impending climate change?

Teachers, researchers, and students engaged in this new area of digital geography, especially in social science and its subfields of sociology, economics, political sciences, anthropology, psychology, development studies, policy studies, social work, urban studies, and planning, will find the volume very useful. For a full picture, the book can be read in combination with its companion volume on ‘Digital Geographies – Theory, Space and Communities’.

Abdul Shaban is Professor at School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. He has been teaching and pursuing research in the field of human geography and urban studies for the last 24 years. He has authored several books, journal papers, and reports for various agencies. His current research interest relates to digital geographies and especially sub-fields of digitalization and urbanization, digital democracy, digital divide, and digitalization and economic geography, and digitalization and creative industries. He has also been visiting fellow and professor at several leading universities outside India, including LSE, Muenster University, Erasmus University, Masaryk University, and Paris Diderot University (University Paris Cite).  He has also been associated with different journals as editor or as a member of the editorial boards.