Connecting Decolonial Quantitative Geographies Special Session

The Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference brings together around 2,000 geographers to meet and exchange ideas. This year it took place in London around the theme of mapping:

“We live in a world that is saturated with maps. They trace invasions, financial crises, pandemics and environmental disasters, and our responses to them. Maps plot and coordinate surveillance, and counter-plot evasion and resistance. They can be ephemeral sketches or visualisations for the ages. They chart jet streams, oceanic oscillations and ozone holes, heatwaves, droughts, and drizzles”

Stephen Legg, University of Nottingham (UK), Conference Chair, 2024

This year at the RGS conference I organised and chaired a session titled ‘Connecting Decolonial Quantitative Geographies’, with a colleague and lecturer in the Geographic Data Science Lab from the University of Liverpool, Dr Elisabetta Pietrostefani. We decided to organise the session because of a sense of frustration at the tendency for the quantitative sector of human geography to ignore and overlook data poor contexts and the politics surrounding quantitative data. Data is inherently political, in terms of who it is collected for and by, and who is not included.  Places and perspectives of communities in the Global South and those communities residing in the Global North are underrepresented in the discipline. Me and Elisabetta wanted to have a conversation about how we put data-scarce regions on the map using new forms of data, and the challenges of doing this in a critical, ethical and reflexive way.

Organising the session began by putting together a brief proposal for sponsorship from the Quantitative Methods Research Group, who shared a call for paper sessions, poster presentations or panels in January 2024. They particularly encouraged proposals for special sessions led by post-graduate students. Attending and participating in conferences requires advanced planning! Organising the session alongside Elisabetta was invaluable and she guided me through the process. Once our request for sponsorship was accepted, we shared a public call for speakers on X (twitter) and through our networks. We accepted four presentations:

  • Repositioning Stakeholders in Informal Commodity Markets: Blockchain for Fair and Transparent Resource Provision in Slum Communities (Ron Mahabir, Desiree Daniel-Ortmann, Olga Gkountouna
  • Doing quantitative geographies responsibly (Gunjan Sondhi)
  • Decolonising Spatial Data Science for People, Place and Planet (Trivik Verma, Laura van Geene, Caitlin Robinson, Juliana Goncalves)
  • Decolonizing Practices in Quantitative Spatial Science (Elisabetta Pietrostefani)

On the day, chairing the session involved logistics like setting up the online meeting and introducing the speakers. After the presentations, I helped to facilitate a discussion with the audience and speakers to discuss the ideas raised and challenges of decolonial practices. Since there was a small-ish audience a colleague advised me to ask people to introduce themselves at the start of the session, which worked well, and I would recommend this to foster a welcoming and inclusive space for open discussion! I want to thank all the speakers and audience for their contributions.

Following the RGS, Elisabetta and I are writing a position paper summarising our ideas on how we can work towards a less colonial and inclusive quantitative geography field. Chairing and organising the session was an inspiring and rewarding experience and an opportunity to do something I’m passionate about that is a bit different to my PhD research. I learnt a lot from the presentations and connected with researchers that I share interests with, as well as developing discussion and networking skills. I am very grateful for the support of Elisabetta and the QMRS for helping me to have this great experience! I would encourage other post-graduate students to get involved in the organisation of conferences and sessions, I think it’s important for our ideas to be heard.

 

Our first Virtual CDAS Partner Engagement event

On the 24th September 2021, the Centre for Data Analytics and Society held its annual partner event online for the first time. Attended by academics from across the CDT institutions and representatives from partner organisations, the event proved a great opportunity for students to get together and share their work, catching up or in some cases meeting for the first time!

The event was planned and delivered by a selection of students from multiple cohorts and home institutions, working together under the guidance of CDT management to plan an engaging and enjoyable virtual conference. Students moving into Year 3 and 4 were split into theme groups and delivered lightning talks on aspects of their PhD projects, while students moving into Year 2 presented posters in a virtual networking space. You can view the posters at the bottom of this article.

Students gather in a virtual poster session in GatherTown
Instead of presenting in a physical space, students could view and present their research posters in a virtual room.

Representatives from the Department of Work & Pensions, Esri, Sheffield City Region, HERE Technologies and Geolytix joined the event to deliver presentations on their work and to participate in a panel discussing how data science is used in their field, and providing tips for PhD students looking to move into commercial or public sector work after graduating.

The event closed with a pub quiz in GatherTown, hosted by our student delivery group. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that next year, we’ll be able to celebrate another successful event in a real pub together!

Research posters presented by Year 2 students

Using Content And Sentiment Analysis To Understand Populism In Donald Trump’s Speeches- Ruth Neville

Text mining & sentiment analysis of Boris Johnson’s lockdown announcements- Nastazja Laskowski

Spanish house prices, What factors are important- Gladys Kenyon

Predicting strokes- Ron Bar-Ad

Predicting Outcomes of Apprenticeships Delivered within Sheffield City Region using Machine Learning- Shivani Sickotra

Police Twitter presence in the period after George Floyd’s death- Erica Kane

How Reliably Can Vivacity Cameras Count People- Mushtahid Salam

Green Homes Grant- Cameron Ward

Dimensionality Reduction for Identifying Valuable Airline Customers- Amy Jungmin Seo

A machine learning approach to understanding factors- Ellie Marfleet

 

Kia Ora from New Zealand: CDAS students present their work at the International Medical Geography Symposium, Queenstown

LIDA and GeoHealth Lab researchers at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch

 

This summer, CDAS students Francesca Pontin and Vicki Jenneson from the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) took their research to the other side of the world at the International Medical Geography Symposium (IMGS) in Queenstown New Zealand (1 – 4 July).  Here they summarise their experiences.

“We feel so privileged to have been given the opportunity to present our work as part of a diverse conference programme, which brought together geography, epidemiology and policy. It was an added bonus to have the opportunity to explore New Zealand’s natural beauty, before, during and after the conference.”

Vicki’s journey started in Auckland with a trip to the University of Auckland to meet Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu, a key figure in healthy retail interventions. This new connection could lead to exciting future collaboration prospects and add value to the existing relationship with Vicki’s UK retail data partner.

Fran and Vicki then met for two days of workshops at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. They were joined by fellow Leeds students Charlotte Sturley and Rachel Oldroyd as well as supervisor Michelle Morris and LIDA and CDAS director, Mark Birkin.

“It was a pleasure to meet contacts from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health and the Canterbury Geohealth Lab and to learn about their unique collaborative model. Along with Rachel and Charlotte, we’ll continue to work closely with the New Zealand team to write an upcoming commentary paper about the health research-policy landscape in New Zealand. We hope that this relationship will continue to grow in the future and look towards the potential for overseas exchanges between LIDA and the Geohealth Lab students and staff.”

After the workshop in Christchurch, it was on to Queenstown for the IMGS conference, but not before an impressive pre-flight Parkrun effort by the team.

Charlotte, Michelle, Rachel and Fran endured -5 degrees at the Hagley Park Parkrun in Christchurch

The Queenstown conference took place in a spectacular setting framed by mountains and Lake Wakatipu. Although a daunting prospect for some of the students it was their first international conference, they were soon encouraged by its friendly and supportive atmosphere. The students embraced the unique opportunity to engage with a diverse global community of multi-disciplinary researchers across health, geography, policy and more. The conference provided a great platform for them to develop their networking skills, and along with their supervisors, Fran and Vicki fostered new and cemented existing connections with researchers both in the UK and worldwide.

The IMGS celebrated cultural diversity, with traditional Māori singing and dancing, while speakers addressed the serious issues of health inequalities affecting indigenous Māori and Pacific populations in New Zealand, providing great context to local problems.

View of Queenstown from the conference venue at dusk

Fran enjoyed presenting her work on the use of smartphone data for monitoring physical activity, and said “It was great to be able to present my research to such a specialist and knowledgeable audience. The ensuing conversation around using commercial smartphone data to monitor activity highlighted the potential such data provides in extending the current sphere of knowledge. IMGS has allowed me to make great connections in the UK and further abroad, with potential collaborations on the horizon.”

Fran Pontin presenting at the IMGS, Queenstown

 

Of her talk about spatial and demographic patterns in fruit and vegetable purchasing in Leeds, Vicki said: It was a really encouraging experience to see the level of discussion and interest that my talk generated. It motivates me to know that I’m doing something truly new and valuable to the wider research community. The dataset that I’m working with is novel and there was lots of excitement about it; I feel that presenting at IMGS helped to put myself and LIDA on the international scene for healthy food retail and big data research.”

Vicki Jenneson presenting at the IMGS, Queenstown

The students also found time for plenty of downtime to explore the breath-taking surroundings. Day trips were invaluable team-building opportunities which strengthened relationships between students and their supervisors within informal settings including; boat cruises, a very muddy bike ride, a winery tour, climbing mountains, skiing and the conference dinner!

Mark Birkin, Fran Pontin, Michelle Morris and Charlotte Sturley pre-muddy cycle ride

Fran Pontin and Michelle Morris on the summit of Ben Lomond

Students Charlotte Sturley, Rachel Oldroyd, Vicki Jenneson & Fran Pontin with supervisor Michelle Morris

Scenic walk around Lake Wakatipu for LIDA students and staff

The students would like to thank the Leeds for Life Conference Award scheme, the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy at the School of Geography and their supervisors for their funding and support which enabled them to embark on this exciting experience.

The next IMGS meeting will take place in Edinburgh in 2021. Both Fran and Vicki hope to return to this meeting to present further findings as they approach the end of their PhD research project. The IMGS conference is highly recommended to PhD students with a focus on epidemiology and spatial applications to health research.