Tom Cowan
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termcern.bsky.social
Tom Cowan
@termcern.bsky.social
170 followers 180 following 9 posts
Urban Geographer writing on property, technology & urbanisation |
Author of Subaltern Frontiers
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/subaltern-frontiers/C7AFB9376F61176080F3CF9B43B72905
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termcern.bsky.social
Tom Cowan @termcern.bsky.social · 6d
New publication! In this paper I draw on heterodox marxist engagements with subsumption to revise core approaches within marxist geography. Subsumption provides us with a dynamic tool to rethink capitalist property, uneven development and difference. Do reach out for access!

doi.org/10.1177/2043...
Geographies of subsumption - Thomas Cowan, 2026
This article draws on heterodox scholarship on capitalist subsumption to revise core approaches within Marxist and critical geography. The article argues that a...
doi.org
Reposted by Tom Cowan
termcern.bsky.social
New publication! In this paper I draw on heterodox marxist engagements with subsumption to revise core approaches within marxist geography. Subsumption provides us with a dynamic tool to rethink capitalist property, uneven development and difference. Do reach out for access!

doi.org/10.1177/2043...
Geographies of subsumption - Thomas Cowan, 2026
This article draws on heterodox scholarship on capitalist subsumption to revise core approaches within Marxist and critical geography. The article argues that a...
doi.org
February 4, 2026 at 11:39 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
ijurresearch.bsky.social
🎉 2025 IJURR Best Article goes to Expert Fixers: Bureaucratic Informality, Brokerage and the Politics of Land in Mumbai by Sangeeta Banerji.

👉 www.ijurr.org/best-article...
February 4, 2026 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
defendourjuries.bsky.social
BREAKING: NO CONVICTIONS AS VERDICTS COME IN FOR FILTON24 TRIAL

After 8 days of deliberation, the jury have not convicted Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Ellie (Leona) Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin on any charge.

Defend Our Juries comment to follow.
February 4, 2026 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
felicitycallard.bsky.social
February 4, 2026 at 12:40 PM
termcern.bsky.social
New publication! In this paper I draw on heterodox marxist engagements with subsumption to revise core approaches within marxist geography. Subsumption provides us with a dynamic tool to rethink capitalist property, uneven development and difference. Do reach out for access!

doi.org/10.1177/2043...
Geographies of subsumption - Thomas Cowan, 2026
This article draws on heterodox scholarship on capitalist subsumption to revise core approaches within Marxist and critical geography. The article argues that a...
doi.org
February 4, 2026 at 11:39 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
admsrl.bsky.social
DIGITAL ECOLOGIES is available for just £15 in paperback until the end of January; discount applied automatically unless you're in North America, where you need to type "JAN40" at payment

this also applies to ALL @manchesterup.bsky.social books!!!

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526188601/
Manchester University Press - Digital ecologies
Digital ecologies - Browse and buy the Paperback edition of Digital ecologies by Jonathon Turnbull
manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
January 8, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
iliasalami.bsky.social
New essay, written for the excellent @transitionsec.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social
💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
November 24, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
statesofprecarity.bsky.social
Precarity is not a niche issue.

One-third of academic Geographers in the UK are on fixed-term contracts.

Our report shows the profound personal, professional, and disciplinary impacts of this. #StatesofPrecarity

Full report: www.rgs.org/research/hig...
States of precarity in UK Higher Education geography
Findings from a discipline-focused research project exploring the lived realities of precarious academic work within UK Higher Education geography.
www.rgs.org
November 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
How We are Not Using Al in the Classroom By Sonja Drimmer & Christopher J. Nygren Premise Prompt engineering is a term that has become commonplace since the widespread availability of generative AI applications like ChatGPT. The idea is that the outputs of the large language models (LLMs) on which these applications are based are only as good as the prompts that are input: vague prompts result in equally vague outputs. And thus was born the race to train for careers in prompt engineering. Unfortunately, the bubble seems to have burst before even the first generation of students was trained for this career outcome. We were given a prompt as an invitation to participate in this newsletter: "How are you using Al in the classroom?" While we have accepted this invitation, we are engaging in the most humanistic act we can imagine-refusing the prompt.
November 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
jameskneale.bsky.social
Please sign c.org/cYgDXSqx62
Save Geography at the University of Leicester
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
c.org
November 7, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
mutablematter.bsky.social
Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!
November 6, 2025 at 9:26 AM
termcern.bsky.social
Looking forward to discussing @asaenzdesicilia.bsky.social's essential new book on subsumption at @histmat.bsky.social conference this week -- subsumption heads, this is the one - come through!
asaenzdesicilia.bsky.social Andres Saenz de Sicilia @asaenzdesicilia.bsky.social · Nov 6
Looking forward to the roundtable/launch panel for Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx at the @histmat.bsky.social conference this weekend.
W/ Patrick Murray, @alybatt.bsky.social, Maria Chehonadskih, @termcern.bsky.social
November 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
asaenzdesicilia.bsky.social
Looking forward to the roundtable/launch panel for Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx at the @histmat.bsky.social conference this weekend.
W/ Patrick Murray, @alybatt.bsky.social, Maria Chehonadskih, @termcern.bsky.social
November 6, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
sahilsasidharan.bsky.social
Fascinating insights into the technics of digitalized propertization that is underway across rural and peri-urban India:
termcern.bsky.social Tom Cowan @termcern.bsky.social · Oct 17
New paper in @tibg.bsky.social:

High-resolution property: drone enclosures in digital India

In it I examine how mass digitized enclosures rely upon a new regime of perception - able to speculatively extract private ownership from collectivised land
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
Svamitva drone survey in Rajasthan. Source: Author.
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 5, 2025 at 12:19 PM
termcern.bsky.social
Fascinating essay on digital public infrastructure & India's software capital www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/dig... @phenomenalworld.bsky.social
The State and Software Capital | Mila Samdub
India’s digital public infrastructure and the promise of the world’s largest online consumer market
www.phenomenalworld.org
October 24, 2025 at 8:49 AM
termcern.bsky.social
Incredibly happy to have been awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Geography!

Big thanks to all my friends and colleagues for all their support - and the @leverhulme.ac.uk for the recognition.
leverhulme.ac.uk Leverhulme Trust @leverhulme.ac.uk · Oct 21
The Trust is thrilled to announce the 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winners. Congratulations to this year’s cohort. Thirty extraordinary researchers from across a range of disciplines: leverhulme.ac.uk/news/2025PLP
Black background with gold swirls. 2025 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winners announced. Celebrating the achievements of thirty outstanding scholars. Leverhulme Trust logo and URL leverhulme.ac.uk/news/2025PLP.
October 21, 2025 at 11:11 AM
termcern.bsky.social
New paper in @tibg.bsky.social:

High-resolution property: drone enclosures in digital India

In it I examine how mass digitized enclosures rely upon a new regime of perception - able to speculatively extract private ownership from collectivised land
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
Svamitva drone survey in Rajasthan. Source: Author.
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 17, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
jamiepeck.bsky.social
Pls share: Applications open for Summer Institute in Economic Geography, Toronto, 5-10 July 2026

Featuring: Lars Coenen, Karen Lai, Devika Narayan and Stefan Ouma

Early career economic geographers (broadly defined) are welcome to apply. Stipends available. www.econgeog.net/Toronto2026
Toronto 2026 | Summer Institute in Economic Geography
www.econgeog.net
October 16, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
tibg.bsky.social
New in TIBG!

'High-resolution property: Drone enclosures in digital India' by @termcern.bsky.social

This paper examines how drone & geospatial technologies are being deployed to enclose rural customary lands across India.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Thomas Cowan (2025) entitled: 'High-resolution property: Drone enclosures in digital India' with a red banner at the top. Drawing from ethnographic research on the implementation of Svamitva, one of the largest digitalized property titling schemes in the world, this paper examines how new drone and geospatial technologies are being deployed to enclose rural customary lands across contemporary India. Focusing on the initial processes of droney survey, GIS mapping and data-creation under the scheme, the paper argues that the creation of ‘high-resolution property’ is achieved not through simple technological observation, but rather via the imposition of a new regime of perception. One coordinated through the speculative and ideological property-making practices of drone surveyors, GIS technicians, and local residents. This new regime of perception aims to extract individual ownership lurking within collectivity, subdivide collectivised lands, and cleanly link rural property to global asset markets and digital public infrastructures. In doing so the paper seeks to provincialise contemporary geographical scholarship on property technology or PropTech, drawing from the diverse property systems and emerging technological apparatus of the Global South, and examine the lively and mediated sociotechnical practices required to convert hundreds of thousands of rural territories into high-resolution private titles and data-points. In doing so, the paper seeks to challenge the overt techno-determinism and solutionism within official debates concerning property digitalization, highlighting instead the ways digitialized property remains socially, ecologically and institutionally mediated.
October 14, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
amoorelouise.bsky.social
Such a nice paper on feature extraction as a project of perception - drone enclosures in digital India. “Feature extraction is an entirely speculative endeavour” rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
Svamitva drone survey in Rajasthan. Source: Author.
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 7, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
t-a-gillespie.bsky.social
Drawing on Staurt Hall to discuss agrarian urbanisation in Gurgaon, @termcern.bsky.social argues that the agrarian world operates as an 'articulating principle' that structures capitalist urban expansion 'without guarantees'

doi.org/10.1080/0272...
Urbanization without guarantees: articulation, rentier capitalism and occupancy on the agrarian urban frontier
This article engages with the work of Stuart Hall to examine conditions of agrarian city-making on India’s urban frontier. The article draws on Hall’s writings on articulation and marxist method to...
doi.org
September 22, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
t-a-gillespie.bsky.social
'New Urban Frontiers'

This @urbangeography.bsky.social special issue edited by me and @clairemercer.bsky.social has now been published online: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rurb20/4...

A thread on the papers 👇
Urban Geography
New Urban Frontiers. Volume 46, Issue 8 of Urban Geography
www.tandfonline.com
September 22, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
ayonadatta.bsky.social
Our 'Informational Peripheries' book is now published and out for the world to read in paperback and online free #openaccess.
Edited with @fennaimara.bsky.social
It has been a pleasure working with @uclpress.bsky.social Read & download free at: bit.ly/4l76QR4
@uclgeography.bsky.social
Informational Peripheries
Urbanisation and urban life in a digital age needs to be examined through a lens of information – encompassing both its politics and its geographies. The periphery in an information age is located sim...
bit.ly
August 5, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Tom Cowan
fennaimara.bsky.social
Informational Peripheries is out now with @uclpress.bsky.social! It brings together critical perspectives on how information flows (or doesn’t) across the edges of systems: archives, infrastructures, digital divides, and more.

Edited with @ayonadatta.bsky.social 🙌

uclpress.co.uk/book/informa...
Informational Peripheries
Urbanisation and urban life in a digital age needs to be examined through a lens of information – encompassing both its politics and its geographies. The periphery in an information age is located sim...
uclpress.co.uk
August 5, 2025 at 1:25 PM