ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the problem of ignorance and geographical space from the vantage point of Science and Technology Studies (STS). It follows fellow STSers in viewing ignorance as a cultural artifact whose production is deeply intertwined with epistemic, social, and spatial processes. The chapter discusses the geographical concepts that have relevance for studies of the social production of ignorance. After briefly exploring the relevance of “place” and “space”, the chapter focuses on “scale” and presents some observations from the studies of regulatory environmental science. Urban spaces that similarly mark the absence of knowledge production are described as “spatial knowledge gaps.” Ignorance about environmental problems can be produced not only by the failure to aggregate observations, but also by aggregating data at an inappropriately large scale. Ignorance is an unusually difficult topic to study empirically since it exists in a negative sense as an absence or near-absence.
