Henry Bakis
Henry Bakis is professor emeritus of geography at the University of Montpellier. His research has mainly focused on industry, firms and ICT geography (information and communications technologies). One of his primary interests has been considering the articulation and the effects of electronic communication networks on territories and social networks. Biography Bakis plays an active role in the International Geographical Union commission dedicated to ICT: executive secretary, chairman or vice-chair of the commissions dedicated to ICT (1985 - 2016). He founded and edited the Communication Newsletter Geography (1985 - 2000) and the journal Netcom (1987) on communication and territories. Bakis was a researcher at the French CNET from 1978 to 1995. He was associated research director at Paris-Sorbonne University from 1991 to 1996; and professor of economic geography at the University of Montpellier (1996-2015). Scope of work Multinationals, technology and spatial organization During the 1970s Bakis studied the consequences of industrial policies, industrial subcontracting and multinational firms activities in the French regions (IBM Case study). He then turned his attention to telecommunications networks of large enterprises first from the IBM case. More generally, the relationship between organizations, network technologies and geographical space are the center of his analysis. He "has contributed greatly to promote this approach of the geography, both within French geographers as within the International Geographical Union.". Geography of ICT Since the end of the 1970s Bakis calls for the study of telecommunications, ICT systems and digital network technologies from the geographical point of view. He "did pioneering work through important scientific production". For Bakis, telecommunications is "one of the levers of regional planning to open up the territories, improve economic performance, and allow various forms of teleactivities, a new connection between the local and the global level". He worked on the digital development of territories following the development of the Internet and digital infrastructures. Spatial heterogeneity The work of Bakis demonstrates that ICT does not lead to the "death of distance", or "the end of geography " in spite of the assertions of some futurologists as Richard O'Brien, Frances Cairncross, Kenichi Ohmae. ICT would minimize the importance of geographical locations, the development of networks but simultaneously leads to greater spatial heterogeneity with enhanced polarization and metropolisation. The development of infrastructure networks is closely related to demographic, social and economic pre-existing environment. Bakis dismissed the unfounded hopes of positive spatial effects. Bakis wrote that despite the development of infrastructure and communications services "space continues to be differentiated and this is one of the reasons why networks are heterogeneous". He pleads also for the development of electro-sensitive fog free areas (implementation of the precautionary principle). Geocybergeography Bakis is considered as the "inventor of the concept of geocybergeography". He considers that human beings still live in a geographical classical space but this space is modified by the use of ICT. Today, it includes new attributes making it more complex. The cyberspace of electronic communication does not substitute nor overlap classical space; instead, it comes to mingle closely with the later at