Space, Place, and Identity in the Digital Age

Representations of Space and Place.

This week I admittedly struggled with the Buadrillard reading this week regarding reproductions. From my understanding, we take for granted the “real” and live in a world filled with reproductions. At this point we start to see the reproductions as the actual and then when they start to dissipate we feel a sense of loss because of our living in the reproduction. Is this the idea of the hyperreal? I’d just like to discuss this more in class because I feel like no matter how many times I go over this I misunderstand something.

In response to Alex’s question that he posited, “Is it possible, though, that cities themselves are spaces in which “place” becomes mutable and separation from certain spaces becomes largely marginal and even irrelevant?” I would suggest that given specific definitions of the term place, that place is never mutable. If I use the definition that I am using throughout my work, which references de Certeau’s theories of space and place, the two are so closely linked with each other that one cannot exist without the other – “space is what place becomes when the unique gathering of things, meanings, and values are sucked out…Put positively, place is space filled up by people, practices, objects, and representations. In particular, place should not be confused with the use of geographic or cartographic metaphors (boundaries, territories) that define conceptual or analytical spaces…” (Gieryn, 465). In essence, place and space are in a relationship with one another. Here, to mute one is to mute the other or, to mark irrelevant one is to mark irrelevant the other. Granted, throughout the course we have stumbled upon different definitions of space and place, I believe that this is one context where this question can be answered – given the definition that I have posed from Gieryn’s work that was inspired by de Certeau.

Gieryn, Thomas F. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 26.1 (2000): 463-96.

Weekly Post 11

1: The Sassen article raises a question for me regarding cities. While cities, without a doubt, exist in a certain space and time, as Sassen points out throughout the paper, cities also are a place where “space” is not always the most relevant of factors. Is it possible, though, that cities themselves are spaces in which “place” becomes mutable and separation from certain spaces becomes largely marginal and even irrelevant? Maybe the notion of cities as “centers” of regions and nations rings more true in the digital era than many people believe.

2: The way in which de Certeau describes the functions of the city seems rather similar to the panoptic principle that was established by Foucault. He doesn’t do so explicitly, but it makes me wonder what a look at “the city” through the lens of panopticism – taking into account not only its own regulation of its own people, but also the role of the city in trade and politics beyond its borders – would look like and what theoretical principles it would yield.

3: Honestly, I have a lot of questions about the Baudrillard reading, which I found to be rather overdramatic and sensationalistic. Maybe that was the intent, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. One part that did get me thinking, though, was the segment on holograms. The article claims, as an example (of something) that by passing your hand through the hologram, your hand becomes unreal. I dispute this, and the premise of one becoming unreal through the medium of television. I think things like holograms and the ongoing theme of television are important to establishing our own “reality” against what happens on the screen.

Definitions:

Gentrification: While this definition is not hit directly in the articles, I’ve brought it up once before and think it bares relevance to the current readings and specifically de Certeau’s. In a city defined by its functions, it would seem that gentrification is a manner in which “undesirable” elements are removed from the city in favor of those which meet its ideal “function” better.

Panopticism: As it relates to de Certeau, panoptic principles could be argued to be driving the manner in which cities are evolving both in their self-administration and in how they relate to the wider world in the digital era.

Connection

Overall these articles gave me a rather unpleasant feeling. In particular the Ito, et al article and its analysis of the “mobile kit.” I’m not sure how much of the tone of the article is related to the discipline it comes out of but the subjects seemed very dehumanized. To what extent is that view of people as objects an extension of objects as parts of people (cyborgs)? Are people becoming extensions of their online identities?

In all of these articles, I am struck by the seeming contradictions of the ways mobile technology affects our lives. It seems we are simultaneously more and less connected. In the chapter by Sherry Turkle, young people leave their parents behind technologically on one hand, but on the other they are competing for attention from their parents against phones, computers, and other devices. We are at once more efficient and more overwhelmed by all there is to do. How do we go about understanding these seeming contradictions, and where do they come from in terms of the possibilities of technology and our relationship to it?

We tend to talk about what technology does to us, our relationships, ways of communication, etc. However, as much as our phones become “smart” and able to do more and more things, they are still tools designed to achieve a goal. Is it possible to interpret the ways in which we have developed and used mobile technology as driven by the ways humans really want to connect and communicate? To what extent are the effects of new ways of doing things shaping the way we do them (and ultimately the ways we want to do them), and to what extent are they actually reflecting a cultural shift that happens independent of the means?

Cyborg – an entity consisting of a human augmented with machinery, in this case with mobile networking capability.

Life mix – the amalgam of places and spaces in which we exist and interact, both “in real life” and virtually.

Discussion Prompts/Questions

• A question posed last class: What is a whole person? What does a whole person do? How do they communicate?
• What conclusions can be drawn strictly from footprinting data? And what does that tell us about connections with others and what does it leave out?
• Ito and Fischer deal with different methodologies to get at similar questions about the nuances of social interaction Fischer is only concerned with fiends that have direct relations with others while Ito is concerned with the creation of private space and alternate approaches to personal interaction facilitated by PCT. Can the Ito provide the electronic gadget Fischer laments about on pg 21?
• The notion of lack or absences seems to permeate all the readings. What is the relationship between connectivity and disconnection in terms of absence?
• Is it possible to talk about connectivity and dis-connectivity in terms of tactics and strategies of social engagement?

Are We Ever Alone?

1. Place: In Sherry Turkle’s, “always on”, she stated, “ A “place” use to compromise a physical space and the people within it. What is a place if those who are physically present have their attention on the absent?” (155-156). I think this brings me back to earlier discussions of a place requiring bodies.  From this quote we see places having bodies but these bodies are still not present. So for me place requires intentional connectivity but at the same time it can represent escape. Place provides comfort because you have created that place, or given meaning to it through the ways that you interact with that place.

Questions:

1. While reading Turkle’s chapter, I was intrigued by her discussion her discussion of relationships. What type of relationships are we creating? What do these relationships actually look like through our devices? How do they carry on into our daily lives? I think this brings us back to explore the relationship between the actual and virtual. The distinctions are helpful and require us to understand at what point do we completely cross over to the virtual? Is it a possibility that our relationship can remain completely in the actual or the virtual?
2. I also appreciated Turkle’s use of the word “pleasure” for describing our desires for technological connection.  I found this important because the devices we use to connect are often seen as negative. People are always questioning why someone would want to create another life or place to reside in virtually. I think pleasure allows us to understand some deeper dynamics of corporeality and more generally our lived experiences. Why are technological devices pleasurable? Is it just about creating a new self? Or does it allow people to be visible in places/spaces where they were once rendered invisible?
3. Is it possible to discuss the online realms we create that make us feel more like ourselves our subconscious? Is it possible that being technologically connected makes the subconscious tangible? Maybe through our creation of new places and the recreation of ourselves we are tapping into a subconscious that allows us to feel more like ourselves in the virtual?

Week 10: Alone-ness and Connection

1) I have very mixed feelings about Turkle’s article, perhaps because her argument itself is mixed. While overall I felt that her argument was one of doom and gloom around technologies effects, she also recognizes the benefits.  On one hand I have personally experienced the stress and anxiety that comes from the immediacy of being connected all the time and constantly receiving information.  I find myself compulsively checking email, or feeling as though I should always be getting work done.  (I think this is also the nature of grad student life–without regular hours there is a sense that one could/should always be working.)  I also multi-task, often to the detriment of my concentration.

As Turkle points out we then try to build un-connectedness into our lives.  I relish my 1.5 mile walk to campus for the 25 minute thinking space it gives me.  I can listen to music, but other than that, I am walking and thinking, nothing else.  (of course, regardless of the unconnected benefits, walking is good for my physical health.) So, there are downsides to this ever-connectedness.  However, technology–email, cell phones, computers–have allowed me to stay in touch with relatives and friends who I would not have been able to be in touch with in the same way.  Thus, for me at least, my answers to survey questions as in the Fischer article about being connected with relatives would def. depend on technology to do so, especially as most of my extended family lives in Europe.  I guess I see technology as something that needs to be balanced, but mostly is a benefit/augmentation to relationships and networks that I currently have.

2) One of the themes of these readings was connectedness and the idea of some types of connections and relations being better than others.  Kinship ties are assumed to be tighter than non-kin (Fischer) and surveys ask if people have someone to talk about”important matters” with, as though those relationships would automatically be more fulfilling than casual encounters with people.  In person is supposed to be better than online.  I wonder how we might think about a discussion around the ways in which people connect, the different needs that people have for relationships? Some people find socializing to be draining, others find it to be energizing.  Also, what does it mean that we have the concept that we are less-connected and lonelier, even though the Fischer article shows us that in general people are just as committed to their families, and have just shifted types of activities and have less children?

3) I liked the concepts of “cocooning,” “camping” and “footprinting,” particularly cocooning and the ways in which it can be used to create space within crowded space or protect against harassment.  I wonder about the implications for understanding private/public space.  I also am trying to think through the implications of cocooning as a response to violence and the ways in which this gives individuals power over space and the ability to move through space safely…but also does address the problems that they are avoiding in the first place—like street harassment.  In these public spaces, what about the response from others when someone is dealing with violence? How do we feel responsibility or not for others who are moving through space with us?

Side-Note:  In related technology news: here is an article about children in an ethiopian village learning how to use tablet PCs without any instruction.  I was reminded of it by Cassy’s comment on what “elite” and tech savvy means.

http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php

DEFINITIONS:

Space: The ways in which people interact and connect is different depending on the space–whether both individuals are physically present, or interacting online.  While spaces are becoming ever more connected through technology, this does not necessarily mean that people feel closer to each other.

cyborg life ::scoff::

1) Perhaps this is more of a small qualm with the methodology of Ito et al, but the diary, shadowing, interview method seems problematic. As we’ve seen how technologies like location based ones alter the way we interact with our surroundings, wouldn’t being followed or forced to be conscious of acts that have become inherently naturalized into our routines not truly be able to reflect how ‘savvy’ or the amount we use the technologies? Likewise, I’m concerned that the subject pool are ‘young professionals’ under the assumption that they would be more technically proficient? If anyone knows me, they know I can’t even work my iPhone..

2) Ito et al notes, “more and more of our articulation of personal and social relations to urban space is being delegated to different technologically embodies infrastructures, accessed with portable technologies of various kinds” (84). I wonder what these findings can be applied to? What is at stake when our identity becomes so intimately linked to various city infrastructures? These research conjectures don’t seem to imply that there is any implication of these findings, other than we should fear the possibility of ever-present surveillance that is mapping our identities.

3) I’m a little confused with Turkle. Maybe it’s because my book review book kind of speaks to this idea and refutes the social distinctions between ‘real’ and online, but her discussion of this bifurcated personality based on myth seems contradictory to studies that have been conducted. The notion of a “cyborg life” seems oddly dismissive of the kind of relationships/identity formations that can be forged in online spaces. I don’t know, it just seems kind of contradictory to everything we have discussed thus far, regarding space, physical vs digital, etc.

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Territory: a use of space that is comprised of material, symbolic, and imaginary concepts that work to define community, nationhood, citizenship and identity in multiple spatial formats

Week 10

1. This first question stems from a Facebook conversation between me, Alyssa, and Avery. Oh, the irony. In “Always On,” Turkle argues that pervasive computing and communication technologies are changing the way we live in the world, and not for the better. E-mail, Facebook, mobile phones, mp3 players, laptops, and the like are anxiety-provoking, experience-destroying, and beyond our control. As one who has acutely felt the anxiety of a Facebook conversation gone horribly wrong (you know, once you’ve said something on someone’s Wall, they disagree, and a string of back and forth ensues to the point where seeing that red little notification bubble makes you want to vomit), I am aware that this “problem” is not—cannot—be the only or the most important site of danger in the age of technology. One need only to turn to Giles Slade’s work on planned obsolescence or the film “Pyramids of Waste” to see that there is more to technology’s potential for harm than Turkle’s fear of hyperconnectedness and social anxiety. Why, then, does her argument carry so much weight? This might be a good moment to talk about transnational flows of material and information and the ways in which certain conversations about technology reflect global circuits of privilege and power.

1. Ito et al’s discussion of mobile media “kits” led me to a similar series of questions about power and class. The authors explain that they “focused on individuals transitioning into the workforce from study at elite universities, as they could be expected to be both technologically savvy and confronted with novel challenges, and thus potential early adopters and influencers” (69). Hold the (smart) phone. While these generalization undoubtedly have some truth to them, is there not space to discuss the particular class dimensions that make this demographic capable of being “savvy?” How does graduation from an “elite university” impact your use of these technologies and these modes of use?

1. Finally, I found myself thinking about the general deployment of the authentic in all of these readings, to some degree or another. What are authentic interactions, authentic experiences, and authentic relationships/social networks? This takes me back to our very early discussion on the distinction between “space” and “place” as it seems that much of the way we grant something authenticity revolves around the notion of shared physical place. The home, school, the workplace, the neighborhood, the grocery store are all recognizable as places, and coincidentally enough, these are also the places where interaction is deemed authentic. Online spaces are then formulated as just that, spaces in which the interaction is inauthentic and therefore lacking.

Definitions

Body: The physical/corporeal form which, in a complex process of internal and external discipline, is shaped to interact with that which is outside of it in a temporally, culturally, and socially specific manner. Not necessarily organic but often implied to be, especially in terms of authenticity and relationship-forming.

Place: A space whose specificity is connected not only to the bodies that occupy it, but also the ideas that are mapped onto it. Like body, it is implied to be somewhere physical in which interactions may take place and lay claim to some sort of authenticity.

P.S. Sorry all, I’ve been forgetting to tag these as Weekly Posts.

Discourses, analysis, and identity

1. Discourses: One of the things that I got from the readings this week is the way in which, through discourses, we refer to the phenomenon of connection and disconnection in the digital age. Being “tethered”, being “connected and disconnected”, living in a “network”, constructing “workspace encampments”, “creating a cocoon”, among others, are just some ways that have been used to explain the influence of the digital age in our daily lives. I am really fascinated by the way in which academia, the mass media, and people in general use the language to talk about technology and interpersonal relations. However, I think that such discursive strategies are not unified. Perhaps walking towards a dead end, but I wonder how linguistics and some of its working paradigms (pragmatics, (critical) discourse analysis) is able to analyze something like this:

“Share. Interact. Experience Smarter. The Galaxi S III is so advanced but so intuitive, it’s simple. With technology that makes it easier than ever to share your world -with your devices, with your friends or groups of people” [Online Advertisement of the Galaxi S III].

My background as a “linguist” makes me think that these discursive items are not only related to marketing strategies, but also appeal to the “new” experiences of human activity. It’s true, this is not related to space, but to the way we talk about technologies, but isn’t language a way to describe how we model and experience the world?… Does this make any sense?

2. Research on mobile activity and (inter)personal relations: I find the study carried out by Ito, Okabe & Anderson as a very important advance in the research of mobile devices, space, and temporality. Although, I don’t want to create a debate here about differences of social class or socio-cultural capital, I wonder what could we think of those people whose access to mobile media (or even movement in urban spaces) is limited. Let’s see…: Cocoons “involve a complex set of negotiations that take into account the presence of others in the vicinity, while also working to shut them out” (Ito et al., p. 74). So, there is an analysis of “what” users of devices do when creating their “own” space. But what about those that surround them and who lack of those means to change the sense of space? What type of analysis would we do here?

3. Multiplicity and identities: It seems that the way in which we interact with certain technologies does not only expand, constrain or multiply space, but also the identity(ies) of individuals. What are the implications of these “varieties” of identities in cultural studies? What does it mean to be part of a specific society where some cultural values are assumed to be shared, when these cultural values could be challenged when our identity changes in a virtual environment?

Connectivity and Worlding

Definitions:

Space: that which we create in and around us by virtue of our embodied social practices or relationships with other bodies (including objects).

Place: those specific spaces or locations to which we are affectively attached, bound, or oriented by virtue of meaningful relationships with other bodies (including objects), through embodied practices of power (biopolitics), and through practices of representation, visualization, and mapping; those spaces or locations that gain meaning through technologies of surveillance.

Identity: the enduring bodily and psychic perception and conception of self across spacetime(s), including the extension of self through cultural tools, technologies, and virtualities; the disciplining of self through technologies of surveillance; and the imagination of self in relation to virtual and actual others or communities.

Questions:

1. This week’s readings were frustrating to me in that, in attempting to grapple with the complex idea of “connection,” they all to some degree took relationships at face value, necessarily simplifying the many nuanced layers or levels of connection in order to isolate modes of relating across multiple scales of space and time, variously shaped by changes in mobile communication technologies. I found Ito, Okabe, and Anderson’s “Portable Objects in Three Global Cities: The Personalization of Urban Places” to be the most useful in that, rather than assuming the self-evidence of the overladen term “connection,” the authors instead pay attention to spatial practices, arguing after Susan Leigh Star that “it is crucial that infrastructure be examined from a social and cultural perspective, and that these embedded and often unnoticed structures represent some of the most pervasive and foundational scaffolds of everyday life” (71-72). By attending to the ways people interact with what they call “technosocial” spaces and places (72), they are able to avoid what I read as Turkle’s technological determinism, thereby allowing the agency of their participants to manifest in the construction of “mobile kits” as well in daily routine interfaces with infrastructure and uses of technology. I found this interesting from an ethnographic perspective, in contrast to Fischer’s approach. As scholars interested in identification and community formation, how might we come to an understanding of our participants’ social practices of emplacement and local, as well as virtual, meaning making? How do we account for the real effects of imagined connectivity?
2. Questions of authenticity, or at least the real and the artificial, depth and surface, seem to hover throughout these readings. Turkle seems invested in nostalgic, “pure” forms of communication, attention, and presence. Is there some way to reformulate these debates? For instance, Turkle suggests that we make ourselves absent through certain uses of technology in public spaces (255), implying that this “lack” or diversion of attention could be construed as rude. There are certainly occasions when I find this behavior rude, yet theoretically I am reluctant to agree that we are any less “really” connected because we can engage many virtual and actual relationships simultaneously. What can affect lend to this discussion? How do socially sedimented structures of feeling shape our interactions with technologies of connection and vice versa?
3. I find Fischer’s focus on personal networks compelling, if somewhat formulaic in this iteration. These chapters are useful to me in attempting to develop a language around social worlds and “worlding,” the processes by which we assemble social “life” around us through people, things, and events. I want the language of worlding to be able to account not only for how we access those connections or nodes in the network that are most immediate to us but also how such connections seem to bridge or even transcend disparate times and places, existing virtually or potentially. How do these notions of connection, space, and place help us define a world? What can be said to constitute a world, and is this even generalizable or is it specific to each person? How might the concept of “worlding” enable us to think the interconnectedness of people, places, and things?