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