On the occasion of the American Association of Geographers Annual Conference 2024, me and my colleagues are presenting contributions on ongoing research:
1.
Organizer(s): Chiara Certoma’ university of rome La Sapienza and Gabriella Palermo university of palermo
Chair(s): chiara certoma’, university of rome La Sapienza
Date: 4/20/2024, Time: 1:20 PM – 2:40 PM, Room: 302B, (Makiki) Third Floor, Hawai’i Convention Center (hybrid/streamed)
The session is sponsored by the COASTAL AND MARINE SPECIALTY GROUP (COMA).
On the belief that the Oceans “hold the keys to an equitable and sustainable planet”, the U.N. proclaimed the Ocean Decade 2021-2030 and called not only for documenting and tackling the ongoing changes affecting the AnthropOcean (Romero Castillo, 2022), but also for mending the rifts between society and the ocean. Strengthening attachment to the sea and encouraging human society to adopt an affective gaze toward the sea, however, requires a transformation of our understanding of the materiality and significance of the ocean.
While it is true that the ocean as a space has long remained marginal within the geographical discipline, more recently a sea-focused knowledge is emerging from multiple perspectives building what is now known as the Oceanic Turn (Anderson and Peters 2014; DeLoughrey 2017; Peters et al. 2023). This increasing interest is devoted to the multiple social spatialities that emerge from the ocean’s liquid materiality; the more-than-human kins that occur at the sea (Haraway,2016); the turbulences, liquidities and temporalities of the ocean (Steinberg and Peters, 2013); and the multiple forms of human societal engagement and participation in recombinant marine ecologies (Brennan,2022; Buchan et al., 2023). Pivotal, in these Critical Ocean Geographies, is the work of geographers such as Philip Steinberg (2001) and Kimberley Peters (2010) and their more-than-wet ontologies (Steinberg and Peters 2019): the ocean materiality, excessive and extensive, can help us to think-with other politics, other possible futures, new ways of living and dying.
The session is kicked-off by a video-showing of the photographic exhibition “Oceanic Assemblages” photo G.Lupinacci/Raw-News realised for SeaPaCS project.
2.
Session “Digitally-enabled Social Innovation Initiatives in the City“
Organizer(s): Venere Stefania Sanna University of Siena, Chiara Certomà University of Turin, Cristina Capineri University of Siena, Paolo Giaccaria University of Turin, Pouya Sepehr University of Turin
Chair(s): Venere Stefania Sanna, University of Siena
Date: 4/19/2024, Time: 1:20 PM – 2:40 PM , Room: 319A, Third Floor, Hawai’i Convention Center (hybrid/streamed)
One of the most important challenges in modern society involves understanding and governing the digital revolution, along with its sociopolitical repercussions. Moving beyond the uncritical technology and optimism inherent in digital capitalism, it is vital to contemplate the spatial, sociocultural, and politico-economic impacts stemming from the widespread permeation of digital technologies (Fields et al., 2020).
Cities, as hubs for the blossoming of Digitally-enabled Social Innovation (DSI) initiatives, feel these impacts particularly strongly. DSI involves a variety of collaborative innovation practices, such as ‘fab-labs’, open software co-creators, and ‘citizen scientists’. These practices unite communities of innovators, who, with varying intentions—from strengthening and reforming to subverting neoliberal institutions—leverage digital technologies and internet connectivity to develop knowledge and solutions addressing myriad social needs. By enabling citizen participation and providing services to harness people’s creativity, DSI initiatives are proliferating and transforming both the structural and operational spaces of contemporary cities. The compactness of cities, coupled with high levels of connectivity, density, and potentially exponential creative contaminations, provides ideal conditions for DSIs in terms of practicality, social acceptability, and the effectiveness of proposed innovations.
However, the spatial dimensions implicated in, and created by, DSI practices have been notably underexplored in scientific literature. This oversight in considering the spatiality of DSIs hinders a deeper understanding of the sociopolitical implications of the ‘Digital Turn’ (Ash et al., 2018), which includes threats to social justice and sustainability, as well as strategies for constructing alternative platform futures (Graham, 2020).
Our session aims to delve into how changes in the digital dimension influence the organization, comprehension, and operation of society across its various spatial dimensions. Specifically, the spatial structures that are both generated by and generate DSI initiatives, serving as sites and tools for the (re)production of power geometries, and fostering imaginaries and narratives about the city’s destiny, warrant consideration.
3.
Presentation “Filming Ocean Plastic Pollution for Participatory Research. The SeaPaCS experience” in session “Filmmaking in a time of chaos, conflict and crisis?“
Authors: Chiara Certoma’ University of Turin, Federico Fornaro Raw-News, Luisa Galgani University of Siena, Giuseppe Lupinacci Raw-News, Alessio Corsi University of Turin
Visual documentation, including professional and amatorial film-making and photography, is a powerful means of creating transformative knowledge and advancing participatory, engaged and action research practices. There is a long tradition in geographical research proving the importance of visual techniques, and film-making in particular plays an increasing role in contemporary society where boundaries between academia and society are blurring and the web – largely dependent on visual contents –drives societal interest and feelings. To introduce our theoretical and methodological considerations, we build on the immersive experience of the EU pilot project “SeaPaCS. Participatory Citizen Science against Marine Pollution”. Facing the crisis of plastic and microplastic pollution in the global Ocean, the project documented and discussed the biological consequences of marine plastic pollution and advanced sustainability-oriented actions in the coastal city of Anzio (Italy) on the Mediterranean Sea. Through visual documentation and, particularly film-making, we have been able to present to people the matter of concern, stimulating the debate, engaging them in doing research on the field, and overcoming the principal practical obstacles in making citizen science and participatory research in the ocean environment.
Therefore, we present our considerations on using film-making and in general visual documentation as a research practice that is particularly useful and prolific in participatory action and engaged research.
We describe our methodological approach complementing the exposition with videos and photographic exhibition screening.
The film “In search of Plastic. Participatory Citizen Science against Marine Pollution” (filmed by Giuseppe Lupinacci, and directed by Federico Fornaro/ Raw-News for SeaPaCS) is available on the Film Geographies portal.
Chiara Certomà 
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