Description | ALL DISTRICTS ARE GERRYMANDERED, BUT HOW MATTERS! with Dr. Jim Thatcher, UW Tacoma Lines on a map have surprising power. They grant rights, marking inclusion and exclusion from groups. As such, every line will exclude some and favor others; in terms of electoral districts, this means that every district is gerrymandered. There are no neutral or perfect districts. But, if we begin from this perspective, then we are better able to see who is favored and how that matters. In this talk, Dr. Thatcher will briefly explore the history of gerrymandering in the US before turning towards discussions of alternative approaches to drawing districts. We'll focus on Ohio, but there will be plenty of anecdotes, stories, and absurd moments in electoral politicking from across the nation. Jim Thatcher is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma and an affiliate with the graduate school of Geography at the University of Washington. Often referred to as Critical Data Studies or Digital Political ecologies, his work examines the recursive relations among extremely large geospatial data sets, the creation and analysis of those datasets, and society, with a focus on how data has come to create, shape, and sustain modern urban environments. He is the lead editor of a 2018 University of Nebraska Press book on the roles ‘big data’ has come to play within and across academic Geography and his second book, on resistance to the power of data in our daily lives, will be published in 2021 with Pluto Press. |
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