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DOSSIER





    Key Dates

    Milestone 01: Proposal
    24 JAN 24

    Milestone 02: Work-in-Progress
    14 FEB 24

    Final Submission
    08 MAR 24


DOSSIER OVERVIEW

This course is built around a research dossier. You will develop and compile the dossier throughout the quarter, with a focus on gleaning investigative resources for your independent, project-based research. You are welcome to develop this project through course content or bring in a project from another class, a thesis, dissertation, or other work.  

The dossier should demonstrate a level of project development appropriate for the stage of your research and study; it will look different, for example, for undergraduate and graduate students, but also for students working on a thesis/dissertation compared with those of you creating a project from scratch. What matters is that this dossier is useful for you. Consider the dossier as a hybrid report + toolkit you can refer back to and develop further in any research project where these kinds of methods fit. 



DOSSIER FORMAT

The dossier will be divided into 5 parts:

       1/ Research Statement    
       2/ Precedent Projects + Investigations
       3/ Data/Evidence + Technical Resources
        4/ Cartographic Workflows + Media
       5/ Annotated Bibliography
1/Research Statement [~500 words]
Your research statement should simply establish the parameters of your digital geographic investigation into some key question related to climate justice-- what we’ll call your “DG/CJ framework.” That means you should:

  1. frame out a geographically, historically, and materially specific question related to climate justice (either for an existing or proposed project) 
  2. describe how the climate justice problem you’ve identified is bound up with and mediated by digital geographic technologies, infrastructures, and relations 
  3. outline how you will integrate digital geographic methods (investigative and cartographic) into your research

This is primarily to help me get a clear sense of what you’re trying to do, and to help you make the most of the various theoretical and technical resources this class will make available. While I’ll aim to help you sharpen your research questions and methods (and provide whatever other feedback you might want), assessing the novelty, sophistication, or disciplinary merits of your research won’t be my main focus. Remember, this is meant to be a toolkit you can carry with you! 

2/Precedent Projects + Investigations [~500-1000 words each]
Choose at least 3 projects and/or investigations that serve as precedents for the kind of research you want to do. Only 1 of these can be something we’ve covered in depth in class; it’s important that you find other resources to guide your own work and to bring into class discussions. For each precedent, briefly summarize why it’s relevant for your work, then critically analyze its component parts with a view to how they might help you structure your own project. Your analysis should always make reference to the DG/CJ framework established by your research statement, and should cover the following:

  1. theoretical framework(s) + concepts
  2. methods/technical workflows
  3. kinds of data/evidence, key datasets/evidence 
  4. forms of geographic representation (including but not limited to traditional cartography)

3/ Data/Evidence + Technical Resources [~300-500 words each]
Compile and contextualize 5-10 key datasets, forms of evidence, and/or technical resources (e.g., mapping/data visualization platform) for your research. For each one, consider what Nost and Goldstein (2022) call the “political ecology of data” for which they address
(1) the contested practices of utilizing and maintaining data infrastructures; (2) the ways they are governed and the territorial statecraft they enable; (3) the socionatural materiality they arise within but also produce.
You’ll need to do a bit of digging on each dataset, form of evidence, or other technical resource you choose that goes beyond an associated scientific paper or metadata. To structure your inquiry into the “political ecology” of your selected data, think of this as an exercise in “critical metadata.” Ask the basic “5W/H” (who/what/when/where/why/how) questions as needed: Where do the data  come from? What geographic area does the dataset cover, and at what resolution? Who collected the data or evidence? Why and how? When, and how often?  What material traces and/or bodies does it follow? Who funded the data collection and technologies of observation/surveillance? 

4/ Cartographic Workflows + Media [~3-5 workflows; ~1000 words]
Drawing on class materials and resources you find independently, identify and experiment with digital cartographic workflows and media you find most useful. Write up a narrative description of what you’re trying to do with these workflows, and critically reflect on what the approaches you’ve adopted can and can’t do to illuminate different dimensions of climate justice struggles and their entanglements with digital technologies. 

You’ll also want to pose and answer follow up questions relevant for your project. For example, what other kinds of evidence might you need to make your story more robust and inclusive of multiple perspectives, scales, and forms of life? How do your workflows reveal or disguise the political ecology of data you’ve explored through your datasets and evidence? What are some next steps you want to take, and what conceptual and/or technical hurdles are in your way?

This is the core technical element of our digital geographic work in the class, so make plenty of time to play around, break things, and learn from your mistakes! The idea is for you to take meaningful steps toward gaining a better understanding of digital geographic tools, and when/how/why they might serve your research. What that means for you depends on a number of variables, so the guidelines for deliverables/outputs for this section are a bit looser than the others. What’s important is that you provide evidence that you’re able to put some critical remote sensing and GIS-based workflows/tools (or combination thereof) to good use, which will typically include working code and media outputs. These outputs might range from a static data visualization/map to an Earth Engine app integrated into a project website.  

We’ll be exploring specific datasets and workflows in our workshops, but it’s unlikely your project needs will align exactly with workshop content. That means you’ll need to peruse the remote sensing and GIS-based workflows listed in the Resources section somewhat independently. How far you go with these more technical workflows largely depends on how much expertise you’re bringing into class, and how much time/interest permits you to explore the tutorials and training resources I’ll make available. Note that we will make time in workshops (and, of course, in office hours) to discuss (and commiserate on) any technical issues that come up. 

5/ Annotated Bibliography
All the dossier components above should be supported by well-sourced literature, data, and other citable materials. The quantity and kinds of sources you use depend on your project and its stage of development; you may already have a project bibliography to work with!

Use Zotero to keep things organized-- if you haven’t used Zotero before, please sign up ASAP with your UChicago account (we get unlimited file storage which makes it very useful). Once you have your bibliography up and running, keep it annotated with useful comments that you can refer to for future use, and submit this annotated version with your final dossier. 




DOSSIER SEQUENCE

While we’ll develop the dossier as a single entity, there are a couple milestones when you’ll need to submit work in progress. To share your dossier materials in progress, we’ll use a free content-sharing platform called Are.na (more on this in the Resources section). For your final submission, you may choose another format (or combination) according to your project needs and preference (e.g., a website, Earth Engine app, Figma prototype, etc).

24 JAN    |    Milestone 01: Proposal
Your first milestone focuses on the development of your Research Statement and preliminary identification of Precedents, Data, and Cartographic Workflows. For your submission you should:

  • Complete a draft Research Statement
  • Identify at least 2 Precedents
  • Identify 3-5 sources of data/evidence/technical resources; draft “critical metadata” statement for at least 1
  • Identify at least 2 workflows relevant to your project
  • Begin compiling preliminary bibliography in Zotero (no annotation)

14 FEB    |    Milestone 02: Work-in-Progress
Your second milestone focuses on diving deeper into the Precedents, Data, and Workflows. For your submission you should:

  • Revise draft Research Statement as needed
  • Identify and critically analyze at least 3 Precedents
  • Identify additional sources for data/evidence/technical resources, write up “critical metadata” for 3-5 sources
  • Identify additional workflow(s) for project; show evidence of experimenting with at least 1, with visualization/media output
  • Continue compiling bibliography in Zotero; identify and annotate key sources

08 MAR    |    FINAL SUBMISSION
Your final submission is due by end of day (i.e., 11:59 pm) on Friday, March 8. Everything outlined in the guidelines above should be complete. It’s the latest possible time I can accommodate and still provide meaningful feedback before the grading deadline (12 Mar), so no extensions are possible except in the case of emergencies.