ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a rationalization of the critical frameworks that neogeographic techniques require forming part of the academic spatial humanities. It discusses the intersection of neogeography with academic crowdsourcing. The role of the GeoWeb as an agent of spatial literacy and a tool of the spatial humanities is complicated by its human and technical history. The importance of the GeoWeb as a distinct part of the online world is the result of a number of user-oriented factors. There are many analyses of data derived collectively from GeoWeb users, and comparisons of the accuracy, epistemology and infrastructures of these data and those produced by mapping agencies. The GeoWeb of direct, georeferenced observation aggregated from the individual to the many has driven new ways of generating cultural content and forming cultural viewpoints. The rich diversity of spatial communication on the GeoWeb, detached from the formal structures of ‘official’ cartography, is inherently prone to political, cultural and demographic appropriation.
