Geospatial Technologies and Society: Uses, Imaginaries, and Critical Issues

The world is experiencing a widespread and accelerated geodigitalization. Everything that can be located on Earth now seems to be transcribed into digital data. This data has become pervasive across all technical systems. Spatial data is at the heart of territorial governance, social interactions and cultural practices. It is transforming knowledge and contributing to the emergence of new professions. Geographic information technologies, geomatics and digital cartography are central to this evolution, even though if their presence is diffuse and the systems in which they are embedded remain opaque. Geospatial Technologies and Society analyzes the use of digital geographic information in various fields by different actors, opening up numerous avenues for reflection and research. This book invites us to overcome the "technological somnambulism" that characterizes our era and to develop and multiply critical approaches in geomatics and geographic information sciences to better understand – and transform – the geospatial world that we are collectively creating.