Training the eye

Formation of the Geocoding Subject

Bibliographic Data

ID3977683
AuthorsMatthew W Wilson (0000-0003-2910-050X, University of Kentucky, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume12
Issue4
Pages357-376
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2010.521856
OpenAlexW2108921942
LanguageEN
Citations received46
References cited38

From 2004 to 2007, a nonprofit organization in Seattle conducted over 25 street surveys in ten neighborhoods. Participants in these surveys collected geographic data about community ‘deficits’ and ‘assets’ using handheld devices, while walking around their local neighborhoods. These residents marked graffiti, litter, vacant buildings, and abandoned automobiles, as well as, ‘friendly’ business districts, appropriate building facades, and peopled sidewalks – all among their categories of interest, initially borrowed from a New York City foundation responsible for developing the handheld devices. Here, I analyze the geocoding protocol, ‘Training the Eye’, that was created by the New York City foundation and was adapted by the Seattle nonprofit. This technology of citizen engagement in governmental practice enacts an embodied cartographic vision that is productive of liminal subjectivities. These practices of geocoding, of assessing place in space, are intensely bodily, both in their messy enactment of digitally-extended vision and in their data-based imaginings of bodies at the margins. I draw upon theories of the cartographic gaze to discuss how technologies of vision constitute particular urban imaginations and discuss how subjects are formed through the discourses and practices of geocoding

Cartography · Civility · Geocoding · Geography · Landmark · Mobile device · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Public Spaces through Art · Urban Planning and Governance

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access