[ecrea] CFP AAG 2018: Platform Urbanism

*Platform Urbanism*

**

*Call for Papers/Panellists***

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Association of American Geographers Conference 2018

New Orleans, USA, 10-14 April 2018

*Organizers*

Susan Moore (University College London)

Scott Rodgers (Birkbeck, University of London)

*Sponsors*

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Digital Geographies Specialty Group

Media and Communication Geography Specialty Group

Urban Geography Speciality Group

*Outline*

Talk about ‘platforms’ is today all-pervasive: platform architecture, 
platform design, platform ecosystem, platform governance, platform 
markets, platform politics, platform thinking. But just what are 
platforms? And how might we understand their emergent urban geographies?

As Tarleton Gillespie (2010) argues, the term ‘platform’ clearly does 
discursive work for commercial entities such as Facebook, Amazon, Uber, 
Airbnb and Google. It allows them to be variably (and often ambiguously) 
described and imagined: as technical platforms; platforms for 
expression; or platforms of entrepreneurial opportunity. Indeed, as 
emergent spaces, platforms – both commercial and nonprofit – entail so 
many ambitions, activities, services, exchanges, forums, 
infrastructures, and ordinary practices that conceptualizing their 
general dynamics is difficult, perhaps even pointless.

Yet platforms do appear to have considerable implications, geographical 
as well as political. For Benjamin Bratton (2015), cloud-based platforms 
such as Facebook, Amazon and Google form a fundamental layer of what he 
calls planetary-scale computation, perhaps representing new forms of 
geopolitical sovereignty. This ‘sovereignty’ is, however, neither 
generalized nor homogeneous: in manifests in geographically uneven 
intensities and extents.

This session invites original research and conceptual reflections that 
explore, debate and critique the notion of an emergent ‘platform 
urbanism’. Recently, Nick Srnicek (2016) deployed the phrase ‘platform 
capitalism’ to encapsulate his argument that platforms not only mark a 
new kind of firm, but a new way of making economies. Here – in a move 
similar to Henri Lefevbre’s (1970/2003) in /The urban revolution/ – we 
suggest a speculative substitution of ‘urbanism’ for ‘capitalism’, 
placing an emphasis on the possibility of irreducible, co-generative 
dynamics between platforms and the urban.

Contributions may address a wide range of commercial and nonprofit 
platforms – including those related to social networking, user-generated 
content, location-based technologies, mapping and the geoweb, goods and 
services, marketing, and gaming – and their relationships with various 
forms of urban living and urban spaces.

**

*Expressions of Interest*

We intend to organize 1-2 paper sessions, depending on quantity and 
quality of submissions, followed by a panel discussion session.

Expressions of interest must be emailed to both Susan Moore 
((susan.moore /at/ ucl.ac.uk) <mailto:(susan.moore /at/ ucl.ac.uk)>) and Scott Rodgers 
((s.rodgers /at/ bbk.ac.uk) <mailto:(s.rodgers /at/ bbk.ac.uk)>) by *_1 October 
2017_*. Those proposing apaper presentation should send an abstract of 
250 words; those interested in participating as a panellist should 
include a short outline of their intended contribution in their email.

*References*

Bratton, B. H. (2016). /The stack: On software and sovereignty/. MIT press.

Gillespie, T. (2010). The politics of ‘platforms’. /New Media & 
Society/, /12/(3), 347-364.

Lefebvre, H. (1970/2003). /The urban revolution /(originally published 
as /La révolution//urbaine/). University of Minnesota Press.

Srnicek, N. (2016). /Platform capitalism/. John Wiley & Sons.


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