InfoTechSpace

Here are some thought questions and ponderings we might discuss in the next class.

‘Space’ can be conceptualized to be an ‘imagined’, ‘knowing’, ‘living’, and ‘meaningful’ agent by some cultures (Verran). ‘Places’ could be thought to be made up of patterns of kin relations (Verran; Basso), history of social relations and networks with other places, and social actions (Massey; Kelleher; Verran; Basso). One could think of it as being differentiated and interconnected by time, shaped by individual and collective memories, values, and perceptions. Places also function to shape identity and its own development. Above all, spaces and places are material (although not just enclosures) and bound by time. So these readings posit…

--If all this is what space and place is, then are virtual communities (e.g. ebay), virtual social networking websites (e.g. Myspace and Facebook), and collaborative media spaces, spaces or places at all? (I am too indoctrinated by the ‘positivistic’ knowledge tradition, so I can’t help thinking of inclusions and exclusions!). Do the above conceptualizations capture the increasing diversity and complexity of human environments? As places and spaces become more and more hybridized (incorporating both virtual and physical components), how could these conceptualizations change? Since people are spending increasing amounts of time immersed in virtual spaces, how does this shape their identity?

--Critiques of the proliferation of the Internet and other information and communication technologies say that ubiquitous computing, increased mobility, and social networks based on communities of interest rather than propinquity result in weak ties to local (place-based) places (communities, neighborhoods, cities, and nations). What do you think?

--TIME magazine’s person of the year is ‘YOU’, celebrating people’s power to optimize their environments through the Internet. Massey talks of spectrum of time-compression power balance between those who control it at one of the spectrum (the high SES ‘echo boomers’) and those who are controlled by it at the other end (the elderly and poor). She focuses on globalization and capitalism and the uneven geographical development that occurs as a result of it. Time-space compression due to information and communication technologies is leading to a similar undemocratic environmental form. If each place is a combination of wider and more local social relations, then how are these ‘flows’ of information between the ‘have-its’ affecting urban form, and its use, and meaning?

Verran’s investigation on the epistemological and ontological meaning of space in a non-western society, though extremely thought-provoking and valuable, does not clearly explain as promised, how these two ‘ways of knowing’ can be reconciled. Can they ever be? (I haven't reviewed Turnbull yet. Maybe he has a breakthrough). If one knowledge system acknowledges there to be one and only one truth, external to oneself, and other thinks of the world as having multiple truths colored by emotion, perception, and experience, then how is possible? If there was one truth, then both knowledge systems should find the same truth. And they obviously do not…(e.g. space as being conceptualized as an empty tract of land with no value for emotion by one way, and a spiritual-emotional living entity by another).

But all is not lost. Verran does not consider recent research in the field of social cognition that has found that people are not entirely rational beings (see for e.g. Kahneman and Tversky). Our judgments and decisions are indeed guided mostly, if not entirely by emotion. Moreover, they are also likely to be automatic—that is very little if any ‘rational thought process’ involved (see for e.g. Bargh). So much for free will and the western science, technology, and philosophy. Thoughts?