The embodied inequalities of Virtual Reality in geography education

Description

Conference presentation. This paper presentation discussed the first results of a research project on Virtual Reality’s role in shaping (in)equalities of access, engagement, and learning in geography education. Drawing on (feminist) geographical debates and broader educational theories of embodied learning, we foreground the body as a key site of experience, meaning making, and learning. We engage with sensory ethnographic methods to better understand VR’s ‘visceral realm’, or, how people understand, sense, and experience their bodies in relation to the spaces and environments they find themselves in. Participants in this study are first-, second-, and third-year undergraduate geography students in the Netherlands and Australia who have been randomly assigned to a high-immersive VR fieldtrip to a site of difficult heritage. In our findings we turn critical attention to how participants read their bodies as physical markers of disability, body size, age, race, and gender (among others), and how these markers shape their access to and use of VR technology.

Period	27 Aug 2024
Event title	International Geographical Union: International Geographical Congress
Event type	Conference/symposium
Location	Dublin, IrelandShow on map