Geography as exploratory science
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This document discusses how geography can help address challenges related to population aging. It argues that population aging leads to complex societal issues that require an understanding of spatial concepts like place, scale, and their interactions. While knowledge about aging is growing, significant gaps remain, particularly around local variations. Geography can help inform data-limited scenarios by addressing complex spatial patterns. The transition to "big data" presents an opportunity to disrupt norms and advance spatial literacy in topics like aging. Geography is well-positioned to develop answers in areas where knowledge remains poor by utilizing diverse data strategies and perspectives.
Geography as exploratory science
- 1. Geography as Exploratory Science: Applications in a Rapidly Ageing World Presenter Hamish Robertson, PhD
- 2. Contents • Introduction • Population ageing and the growth of knowledge • Ageing – from demography to societal complexity • Geography and the data problem • Advancing spatial literacy in the 21st century • Disrupting the norm via population ageing and the big data transition • Conclusion
- 3. Introduction • PhD on the geography of Alzheimer's disease in a medical faculty – topic defined as “Other” in their theses listing… • Population-level ageing is the demographic transformation of the 21st century and well-advanced in many countries • Complications exist for responses in less affluent countries and ideological problems in the more affluent ones (e.g. continuing privatisation) • Challenges of ageing require an understanding of space, place, scale, temporality and their interactional nature(s) • As I have said elsewhere, the consequences of an inadequate response are potentially catastrophic (see patient safety field for examples)
- 4. Population ageing and the growth of knowledge • Deep social history to ageing as individual and collective experience, one far from complete or fully explained – workhouse infirmaries • Knowledge base is highly developmental across multiple intellectual and academic domains (arts, sciences, economics, policy etc.) • Various issues and areas about which our knowledge base is very constrained – uneven development processes • Cultural and ideological tropes exist around ageing that make it a complex phenomenon – e.g. ‘ageing tsunami’ and related disaster metaphors • Yet ageing is not a disaster and surely beats dying of infectious disease in childhood or systemic diseases in middle age • What is actually required is a science of ageing that goes beyond our current limits to knowledge – what is age/ageing? How will it progress into the future? How best do our societies respond? What humane options exit? How to avoid perverse effects etc. etc.
- 5. Ageing – from demography to societal complexity • Population aging starts as a demographic problem but demography is a deeply political science and this is frequently unrecognised/ignored in the health sciences (disingenuously apolitical nature of healthcare) – ‘population’ is not a neutral entity • Population ageing arises as a consequence of relatively ‘simple’ factors with complex trajectories, including rising LE, falling fertility, improved healthcare, socio-economic conditions etc. • In other words, a general pattern characterised by a wide variety of different trajectories over time e.g. Sweden versus Iran, Indian regional variations (nations within nations) etc. • In addition, transitional nature of population ageing produces a range of effects -> ageing to aged (process to state) and how this is adapted to at a societal level • Current ideology of old age in neoliberal regimes does not bode well – back to the Poor House or a 21st century version (Eubanks and the digital workhouse)?
- 6. Geography and the data problem • Much of what we know about population ageing is limited by two factors: (1) generalised aggregate rates applied across the board and (2) very limited information about localised variations and sub-group experiences • In more developmental scenarios often very little reliable data at all, census regularity or adequacy, safety issues, cultural prejudices about the ‘aged’ (e.g. various African and European countries), perceptions of age- related illness as personal moral failure or mental illness • Ageism is pretty much universal or close too (e.g. Japan and elder abuse – cultural tropes mostly useless or simply racist “they look after their…”) • Epidemiological and public health knowledge and practice often focus on known/established ‘problems’ e.g. child and maternal health, at expense of ageing and older people • I propose, therefore, geography as a key discipline for informing data-poor scenarios and scale-limited information, as well as addressing the many complexities to which population ageing will give rise
- 7. Dementia Perspective: Building Knowledge with Geography
- 8. People Aged 75+ and Need for Assistance with Service
- 9. Advancing spatial literacy in the 21st century • Space-place concepts poorly understood and applied in much of ageing theory and practice -> “ageing in place” is a classic example, almost completely atheoretical in definition and applications (usually proxies for ‘location’ as a completely decontextualized phenomenon – don’t read Goodchild) • Scale as a conceptual, methodological and experimental device leaves most health sciences/services researchers confused – poor history of ‘scaling up’ and long history of short-term projects that ultimately fail due to lack of support, politics etc. • GIS and related tools are varyingly understood and applied but for the most part simply not used at all – health informatics and GIS convergence is beginning to emerge, which may change this (e.g. US HIMSS) • Many health/medical/epidemiological researchers work as though geography is not relevant to health patterns, problems and consequences (aspatial) • A spatial literacy issue that is ongoing – other side of the coin is they buy some software and think they’re experts (classic techno-fix – don’t read Harvey!)
- 10. Disrupting the norm • The small data paradigm is in decline and skilling up for the ‘big data’ paradigm needs to gain momentum – time to enter this equation • Some spatial elements are readily supported by data visualisation exponents and their software (e.g. Tableau, Qlik, Power BI) • This scenario will only continue to grow because big data has no intrinsic problem with location, distance, scale or related complexities (analysis another issue but change immanent) • Small data was the norm for a century or so and geography has been in the forefront of critiquing that paradigm - 1970’s reaction to the quantitative revolution • We are in a moment of impending disruption – big data transition will potentially deliver another ‘moment’ for (human) geography
- 11. Conclusion • Population ageing represents an opportunity for geography as a discipline that accommodates multiple perspectives and data strategies • Global patterns vary widely underneath a general pattern of change, data is an issue – quantity, quality, analysis, access etc. • Epistemological confusion can be observed in business and academia as we transition to big data • Range of issues for which we lack solid answers is growing, this is not a problem in itself but an area/moment of opportunity • Geography is the (IMO) experimental social science of the 21st century – every significant emerging change has a spatial/geographical dimension (data systems, analysis, visualisation, systemic complexity, interventional responses etc.) • Geographers have the knowledge and skills to develop answers to scenarios in which data is limited and knowledge remains poor – speculative ideas, methods and tools