Jonathan Cinnamon, Associate Professor with the Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, began his post-secondary education later than most, following several years spent living and traveling abroad. Driven by a passion for exploring the world, Jonathan returned to Canada to pursue a degree in geography. His academic journey has since led him to teach at five universities across three countries, building a truly global career. Discover more about his background, research interests, and teaching philosophy in this month’s Meet our Faculty.
Can you tell us a bit about your educational journey? How did you come to pursue the field you are in? What led you to come to UBCO?
My educational journey began a bit later than many – I took several years off after high school before starting my geography undergrad degree in my mid 20s. I suppose I didn’t really take those years off; in retrospect they were a formative part of my life, education and career. I spent those years travelling and living overseas, only returning to Canada to start my degree after exhausting all other options (i.e. work visa extensions and money).
I chose geography on a whim; I thought at the time that it would provide me with opportunities to continue travelling and seeing the world. After finishing my BA in Toronto, graduate school in Vancouver, postdoctoral studies in Ohio, a visiting fellowship at the University of the Witswatersrand (South Africa), as well as academic positions at the University of Exeter (UK), Toronto Metropolitan University, and now at UBCO – I’m happy to say it all worked out.
Can you talk about your current role(s) at UBCO? What do you find enjoyable about them and what do you find challenging?
As an Associate Professor of Geography at UBCO I have the pleasure of teaching a diverse variety of courses in geography, to a diverse variety of students. Geography is very broad and I am lucky to be trained across several different areas of the discipline. So, I might get to teach technical workshops in mapping and geospatial technology one day, run an upper-level student seminar about urban change and gentrification the next, and wrap up the week with a large first year lecture on global resource inequalities.
Every day is different and that is both the challenge and the reward of this job. I’ve also had the pleasure of serving as program coordinator for Geography over the past several years. This is an important role that requires engagement with geography colleagues, university staff and leadership, and students.
Can you describe your teaching philosophy?
I believe teaching is an opportunity for students and instructors to connect academic ideas and practices to what is happening in the world around us. My teaching philosophy is based on the idea that students and instructors are active collaborators in an iterative, ongoing, and dynamic process of learning. My teaching is research-led, which has both practical and pedagogical benefits. It provides an opportunity to work through your research ideas to an informed audience, and for students, it serves to ground concepts and techniques learned in class in real world research contexts.
My teaching is also experiential, career-relevant, and grounded in contemporary challenges. I believe that we as educators have an obligation to prepare students for life after the classroom, so I teach students both the importance of thinking and doing. Geography students emerge from the program with a really important set of technical and critical thinking skills needed to address the challenges of today.
What are your research interests and what do you hope to gain/solve/better understand from your research? What research projects have been most meaningful to you?
As a digital geographer, my research examines critical questions that emerge at the intersection of technology and society. Digital technologies in general, and geographic technologies in particular – such as mapping, GPS, and satellite sensing – underly many of the systems used in decision making in industry and government, and they underpin everyday life in our interconnected and increasingly automated world. Their increasingly infrastructural character positions them as important objects for evaluation and analytical investigation.
Some of the key overarching questions that I seek to answer through my research include: why is access to geographic technology unevenly distributed within society and around the world, and with what impact? How do novel technologies like big data and artificial intelligence get discursively woven into society? What are the motivations for organizations to invest in or resist digital technologies, and what are the consequences?
I answer these questions through two distinct but interconnected approaches to knowledge production. First, through case study research, my research seeks to critically examine how digital and spatial data technologies intersect with issues of inequality, surveillance, activism, and visual representation, focusing in particular on how these connections are manifest in urban contexts. For instance, I have a longstanding research project examining the digital data practices of grassroots groups, corporations, and governments. Through this work I have found that these actors pursue data-driven decision making and invest in digital technologies for myriad reasons that extend beyond their practical benefits.
In the second approach, my research aims to answer these key questions through engaging with the technologies themselves. I use technologies such as geographic information systems and computer vision to examine how cities and regions are patterned according to social difference. More recently, I’ve taken an interest in developing novel digital and visual methods. For instance, over the past several years I’ve been using geo-enabled 360-degree cameras to create DIY street view imagery, which can be used to visually represent areas ‘unseen’ by corporate platforms such as Google Street View.
What is the main thing you hope your students will take away from your classes?
I want students to leave with optimism and a belief that they have learned something that will make their lives and lives of people around them better.
What are some of your most memorable teaching moments?
I’ve been lucky to teach at five different universities in three countries to great, eager students. So I have a lot of memorable teaching moments. Some of the most memorable moments are when students challenge or push me for a better example or explanation of an idea or concept. I love this, despite the need to think and generate an answer on the spot, because it is evidence of genuine interest by the student.
What is your proudest professional accomplishment?
I’m always really pleased to hear from former students who’ve moved on to big things – a new career, graduate school, a first job at a university.
Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
I’m in a good place right now; as a newly tenured Associate Professor, I have a full runway in front of me to develop new and interesting projects that come my way. And I will do just that. UBCO is a supportive and dynamic place to take the next step in a career, so while I don’t have a clear answer, all I can say is I hope to be where I am now, just a bit further along in my knowledge, and with an even sharper resolve to teach the next generation.