社会地理计算的理论逻辑与研究范式及展望

The geo-computational social sciences (GSS) has emerged as a new frontier in the interdisciplinary fields. However, the GSS has somehow trapped into a predicament as the field evolves, due to many fundamental theoretical issues remaining unsettled, such as the underlying theoretical legitimacy, conceptual domains, and research paradigm. Aiming to rectify these fundamental flaws, this paper first traces the evolving and intersecting trajectories of sociology, geography and geographical information science and focuses on the spatial turn and ideological trend of computationalism, based on which the theoretical legitimacy of GSS is defended. Second, we crystalize its conceptual domains with reference to Deleuze's conceptualization of Rhizome and further unfold the conceptual domains from two perspectives. Third, in reference to Kuhn's paradigm framework, we clarify the research paradigm of GSS through a systematic theoretical deduction from three aspects, i.e., epistemology, ontology and methodology. Finally, we propose the research agenda for GSS against China's context in the post-pandemic era to advance the theoretical innovations and applications of modern geography.