Crossing the qualitative- quantitative divide II Inventive approaches to big data, mobile methods, and rhythmanalysis
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight novel methods with particular purchase on the problems of our time and encourage consilience, synergy, and a positive embrace of diversity in geographical scholarship.
Abstract: In this second of three reports on qualitative and quantitative methods we highlight novel methods with particular purchase on the problems of our time. We again focus on scholarship crossing multiple geographical divides, those of neo/paleo geography, qualitative/quantitative methods, and physical/human geography. We do so now by concentrating on three areas: the emerging digital humanities and the rise of big data, mobile methods, and rhythmanalysis. With this broad approach we seek also to encourage consilience, synergy, and a positive embrace of diversity in geographical scholarship.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the challenges and risks of using big data in geographic scholarship and raise epistemological, methodological and ethical questions, while at the same time tackling challenges, ameliorating the risks and thinking critically about big data as well as conducting big data studies.
Abstract: We are entering an era of big data – data sets that are characterised by high volume, velocity, variety, exhaustivity, resolution and indexicality, relationality and flexibility. Much of these data are spatially and temporally referenced and offer many possibilities for enhancing geographical understanding, including for post-positivist scholars. Big data also, however, poses a number of challenges and risks to geographic scholarship and raises a number of taxing epistemological, methodological and ethical questions. Geographers need to grasp the opportunities whilst at the same time tackling the challenges, ameliorating the risks and thinking critically about big data as well as conducting big data studies. Failing to do so could be quite costly as the discipline gets left behind as others leverage insights from the growing data deluge.
474 citations
Cites background from "Crossing the qualitative- quantitat..."
...The data revolution underway demands a wider appreciation of the variety of emerging data sources and types, and a wider set of skills, including those being developed in the digital humanities, as well as basic coding, modelling and simulation (DeLyser and Sui, 2013a, 2013b; Sui and DeLyser, 2012)....
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TL;DR: This paper investigates representative Big Data applications from typical services like finance & economics, healthcare, Supply Chain Management (SCM), and manufacturing sector and discusses current movements on the Big Data for SCM in service and manufacturing world-wide including North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific region.
412 citations
Additional excerpts
...Examples include web analytics applications, scientific applications, and social networks (DeLyser & Sui, 2013; Dittrich & Quiané-Ruiz, 2012; Jitkajornwanich, Gupta, Elmasri, Fegaras, & McEnery, 2013; Xu et al., 2016)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a threefold categorization of the intensifying relationship between geography and the digital, documenting geographies produced through, produced by, and of the digital is presented.
Abstract: Geography is in the midst of a digital turn. This turn is reflected in both geographic scholarship and praxis across sub-disciplines. We advance a threefold categorization of the intensifying relationship between geography and the digital, documenting geographies produced through, produced by, and of the digital. Instead of promoting a single theoretical framework for making sense of the digital or proclaiming the advent of a separate field of ‘digital geography’, we conclude by suggesting conceptual, methodological and empirical questions and possible paths forward for the ‘digital turn’ across geography’s many sub-disciplines.
387 citations
Cites background from "Crossing the qualitative- quantitat..."
...DeLyser and Sui (2013) thus argue, that analysing the spatiality of big data requires novel methodological approaches that cross between qualitative and quantitative methods because big data alone cannot offer a comprehensive geography of the digital....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the sharing economy is contingent and complexly articulated, and it has the potential to both shake up and further entrench "business-as-usual" through the ongoing reconfiguration of a divergent range of (economic) activities.
373 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a data-driven approach for geographic knowledge discovery and spatial modeling in the context of data-rich environments, where the most fundamental changes are not just the volume of data, but the variety and the velocity at which we can capture georeferenced data.
Abstract: The context for geographic research has shifted from a data-scarce to a data-rich environment, in which the most fundamental changes are not just the volume of data, but the variety and the velocity at which we can capture georeferenced data; trends often associated with the concept of Big Data. A data-driven geography may be emerging in response to the wealth of georeferenced data flowing from sensors and people in the environment. Although this may seem revolutionary, in fact it may be better described as evolutionary. Some of the issues raised by data-driven geography have in fact been longstanding issues in geographic research, namely, large data volumes, dealing with populations and messy data, and tensions between idiographic versus nomothetic knowledge. The belief that spatial context matters is a major theme in geographic thought and a major motivation behind approaches such as time geography, disaggregate spatial statistics and GIScience. There is potential to use Big Data to inform both geographic knowledge-discovery and spatial modeling. However, there are challenges, such as how to formalize geographic knowledge to clean data and to ignore spurious patterns, and how to build data-driven models that are both true and understandable.
301 citations
Cites background from "Crossing the qualitative- quantitat..."
...Physical geographers have—perhaps wisely—disengaged themselves from these debates, but the tension between nomothetic and idiographic approaches persists in human geography (see Cresswell 2013; DeLyser and Sui 2013; Schuurman 2000; Sui 2004; Sui and DeLyser 2012)....
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References
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01 Jan 2004
Abstract: What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion -- imageability -- and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.
8,105 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1960
TL;DR: In this article, Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion -imageability -and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities.
Abstract: What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion -- imageability -- and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.
6,710 citations
"Crossing the qualitative- quantitat..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Walk-alongs, mobile walking interviews famously used by Kevin Lynch (1960), can be adapted to changing situations, with lists of questions evolving into more open-ended and spontaneous exchanges as the environment and circumstances indicate (Benwell, 2009; Carpiano, 2009; Kusenbach, 2003; Lynch, 1960; Myers, 2011; Rose et al., 2010)....
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...Walk-alongs, mobile walking interviews famously used by Kevin Lynch (1960), can be adapted to changing situations, with lists of questions evolving into more open-ended and spontaneous exchanges as the environment and circumstances indicate (Benwell, 2009; Carpiano, 2009; Kusenbach, 2003; Lynch,…...
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...…famously used by Kevin Lynch (1960), can be adapted to changing situations, with lists of questions evolving into more open-ended and spontaneous exchanges as the environment and circumstances indicate (Benwell, 2009; Carpiano, 2009; Kusenbach, 2003; Lynch, 1960; Myers, 2011; Rose et al., 2010)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study is surveyed, in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern.
Abstract: This review surveys an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and the “global,” the “lifeworld” and the “system.” Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise are considered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within new spheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies broadly. Several “tracking” strategies that shape multi-site...
4,905 citations
Book•
13 May 2011
TL;DR: The amount of data in the authors' world has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus, according to research by MGI and McKinsey.
Abstract: The amount of data in our world has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets—so-called big data— will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus, according to research by MGI and McKinsey's Business Technology Office. Leaders in every sector will have to grapple with the implications of big data, not just a few data-oriented managers. The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things will fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future.
4,700 citations
TL;DR: Farriss and Reddy as discussed by the authors presented a cultural biography of things: commoditization as process Igor Kopytoff Part II, and two kinds of value in the Eastern Solomon Islands William H. Davenport and William M. Cassanelli Part V.
Abstract: Foreword Nancy Farriss Preface Part I. Toward an anthropology of things: 1. Introduction: commodities and the politics of value Arjun Appadurai 2. The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process Igor Kopytoff Part II. Exchange, Consumption, and Display: 3. Two kinds of value in the Eastern Solomon Islands William H. Davenport 4. Newcomers to the world of goods: consumption among the Muria Gonds Alfred Gell Part III. Prestige, Commemoration, and Value: 5. Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric Europe Colin Renfrew 6. Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics Patrick Geary Part IV. Production Regimes and the Sociology of Demand: 7. Weavers and dealers: the authenticity of an oriental carpet Brian Spooner 8. Qat: changes in the production and consumption of a quasilegal commodity in northeast Africa Lee V. Cassanelli Part V. Historical Transformations and Commodity Codes: 9. The structure of a cultural crisis: thinking about cloth in France before and after the Revolution William M. Reddy 10. The origins of swadeshi (home industry): cloth and Indian society, 1700-1930 C. A. Bayly Index.
4,169 citations