The ‘view from nowhere’? Spatial politics and cultural significance of high-resolution satellite imagery

This themed issue focuses on the cultural meanings and spatial politics of high-resolution satellite imagery, critically examining how the burgeoning use of these data is radically reshaping the ways different groups comprehend space and place. Orbiting high overhead are a scatter of small, but very costly, satellites designed to produce streams of visual spatial representations of the ground below. For several decades this remotely captured imagery has been widely recognised as a powerful tool in many aspects of military activity (Day et al., 1998), governmentality (Thomas et al., 1995) and environmental management (Barratt and Curtis, 1999). However, the social and spatial disposition of high-resolution satellite imagery of the earth is diffusing much more widely and freely. Data that were formerly in the military domain, under the exclusive control of elite groups and with uses carefully restricted on grounds of security, are being rapidly commercialised. Meanwhile, technological change is revolutionising the ways in which civil society are able to deploy these richly detailed and apparently mirror-like images. Internet mapping portals, in particular, have proved to be key sites of change, as they have begun to offer ubiquitous and ‘free’ access to high-resolution satellite imagery in unprecedented detail to a global audience through simple interfaces. The capabilities and technical beauty of Google Earth, in particular, has garnered widespread praise and a rapidly growing online fan-base since it launched in 2005 (Butler, 2006). The way