The Politics of Proximity

Mobility and Immobility in Practice

Giuseppina Pellegrino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754677666
• eBook ISBN: 9781317020165
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Increasingly, everyday living and practices depend on how mobility (and immobility) is articulated through the ever-present influence of a range of physical and virtual infrastructures. This book focuses in particular on the 'political' dimension of mobility and immobility, which plays a key role in establishing patterns of proximity in real and virtual co-presence. Proximity is seen as the result of choices, negotiations and practices carried out in different settings. Drawing from different literature streams (Sociology, Organization Studies and Science and Technology Studies), this book analyses patterns of mobility in relation to new possibilities of organizing space, time, and proximity to others. Different phenomena - from memorial sites to migration, from urban mobility to mobile work - are analysed, illustrating different types of proximity through mobility and immobility. In doing so, this book offers a cross-cultural and innovative theoretical framing of issues linked to mobility, through the link with immobility and proximity.

PART 1
Categories of Proximity/Mobility

Chapter 1

Space, Mobility and New Boundaries: The Redefinition of Social Action

Maria Cristina Marchetti

Introduction

The increasing levels of mobility, which encompass globalization, migrations, tourism, media and technologies have implied a redefinition of space as a frame for social action.

In the sociological debate there are two prevailing notions of space: on the one hand there is the physical space, geometric, material, which equates the space with the place; on the other, the social space, abstract, immaterial, which is strictly related to the space of interaction. Classical sociology has unified both the notions, focusing on the analysis of social interactions within a specific place (face-to-face model).

However, the identification of social and physical space is now questioned from different points of view now overcome on different issues:

1. a shared, physical space does not entail a social space (Augé’s ‘non-places’);

2. on the contrary, a not shared physical space, does not necessarily entail the lack of a social space (Meyrowitz, ‘no sense of place’).

These opposite processes imply the ‘dematerialization’ of space; this comes as a result of new ideas about mobility (Urry’s ‘new mobilities paradigm’; Castells’s ‘space of flows’) and, as a consequence, the redefinition of social action: should people live without boundaries? Are there new boundaries emerging (the space of local; the space of culture)?

The notion of space in the sociological debate

Physical space vs. social space

The notion of space, together with time and culture, is currently one of the main fields to verify a long-term process leading to a redefinition of social action (Pacelli and Marchetti 2007). Migratory processes, globalization and mass media have changed how space is conceived in social sciences. In the sociological debate, there are two prevailing notions of space: on the one hand we have the physical space, geometric, material, which equates the space with the place; on the other we have the social space, abstract, immaterial, which is strictly related to the space of interaction. It is important to point out the distinction between place and space because they are often used as synonymous:

An essential preliminary here is the analysis of the notion of place and space suggested by Michel de Certeau. He himself does not oppose ‘place’ and ‘space’ in the way that ‘place’ is opposite to ‘no place’. Space, for him, is a ‘frequented place’, ‘an intersection of moving bodies’: it is the pedestrian who transforms a street (geometrically defined as a place by town planners) into a space. This parallel between the place as an assembly of elements coexisting in a certain order and the space as animation of these places by the motion of a moving body is backed by several references. The first of these references is to Merleau Ponty who in his Phenomenologie de la perception draws a distinction between ‘geometric space’ and ‘anthropological space’ in the sense of ‘existential’ space, the scene of an experience of relations with the world in the part of a being essentially situated ‘in relation to a milieu’. (Augé 1995: 80)

Similarly, in his essay on the Consequences of Modernity, Giddens says that:

‘Place’ is best conceptualised by means of the idea of locale, which refers to the physical settings of social activity as situated geographically. In pre-modern societies, space and place largely coincide, since the spatial dimensions of social life are, for most of the population, and in most respects, dominated by ‘presence’ – by localised activities. The advent of modernity increasingly tears space away from place by fostering relations between ‘absent’ others, locationally distant from any given situation of face-to-face interaction. In conditions of modernity, place becomes increasingly phantasmagoric: that is to say, locales are thoroughly penetrated by and shaped in terms of social influences quite distant from them. (Giddens 1990: 18-19)

Classical sociology has unified both the notions, focusing on the analysis of social interactions within a specific place. Consequently, social space and physical space coincide, as simplified in the face-to-face model. As Meyrowitz assesses,

[t]he relationship between physical place and social situation still seems so natural that we continue to confuse physical places with the behaviours that go on in them. The words ‘school’ and ‘home’, for example, are used to refer both to physical buildings and to certain types of social interaction and behaviour. (Meyrowitz 1985: 116)

Since the end of the nineteenth century, classical sociology has focused on the relationship between physical and social space. At that time several authors realized that the changes which occurred in the organization of spatial forms in the contemporary societies implied changes in the way people constitute social relationships. The increasing density within the metropolis space, as Durkheim stressed, produced an acceleration of social interaction, from which a new form of solidarity was born (Durkheim 1984). Similarly, the metropolis became the symbol of the progressive objectivation and abstraction of social relationships (Simmel 1950).

The sociological debate on the notion of space can be summed up in two prevailing interpretative orientations.

On the one hand determinism, which characterized a conspicuous part of classical sociology, assessed the supremacy of physical over social space; according to this perspective, the way physical spaces are conceived influences the interaction processes. On the other, the relational approach reversed the link between physical and social space: the way individuals interact reshapes the physical space they live in. Goffman can be considered the leading figure of the former approach and Simmel of the latter.

Goffman analysed the relationship between physical and social space, also offering some new perspectives on this topic. The language that Goffman uses is taken from the theatre and has strong spatial implications: the front stage and the backstage define a framework for social action.

The limit of Goffman’s analysis relies on the fact that he does not provide a comprehensive description of the relationship between different representations. On the contrary, the social actors can play their role on different stages, using metalanguages, which refer not only to the physical context, but also to past experiences, and images processed through past interactions, too.

As regards the relational approach, maybe Simmel was the classical author who could be said to have enlarged and to some extent overcome the traditional approach on space. As Frisby stresses ‘space is dealt with by Simmel in a complex manner involving both boundaries, distance and the removal of boundaries (the money nexus overcoming spatial boundaries)’ (Frisby 1992: 76).

According to Simmel, space is a soul activity that the individual uses to connect disjointed experiences. Space is the ‘in-between’ which is filled up with a reciprocal action (relationship). He particularly focuses on five properties of space: 1) the exclusivity or uniqueness; 2) the boundary; 3) the localizing or fixing of social interaction in space; 4) the proximity/distance in space; 5) the mobility (the changing of location). For the specific purposes of this chapter we will focus on the notion of boundary and on the significance of proximity/distance in space. These concepts are relevant in every sociology of space.

The former implies that space can be framed in by boundaries. As Frisby says, Simmel ‘indicates that a society, and forms of sociation, possess a sharply demarcated existential space in which the extensiveness of space coincides with the intensity of social relationship’ (Frisby 1992: 105). The latter maybe is the main contribution of Simmel’s analysis of space’. As Levine has stressed:

nearly all of the social processes and social types treated by Simmel may be readily understood in terms of social distance. Domination and subordination, the aristocrat and the bourgeois, have to do with relations defined in terms of ‘above’ and ‘below’. Secrecy, arbitration, the poor person, and the stranger are some of the topics related to the inside-outside dimension. (Levine in Frisby 1992: 107)

The distance can be considered as immaterial and as a protection from invasions coming from the outside, which occurs in the metropolis. In a more complex manner, we can seemingly simultaneously participate and distance ourselves, as the figure of the flâneur does.

Particular attention is due to the fifth property of space – mobility – the only one that implies the shift from a condition of stasis to a condition of movement. Mobility presumes that individuals move from one place to another and as a result they have to cope with the change of the spatial conditioning on their lives. Nomadism and migration are the main examples of a mobile notion of space.

In this context the ‘stranger’ becomes the symbol of a condition that includes either stasis or movement. ‘If wandering is the liberation from every given point in space, and thus the conceptional opposite to fixation at such a point, the sociological form of the ‘stranger’ presents the unity, as it were, of these two characteristics’ (Simmel 1950: 402).

The stranger lives in a ‘no-man’s land’ divided between nearness and remoteness. ‘The unity of nearness and remoteness involved in every human relation is organised, in the phenomenon of the stranger, in a way which may be most briefly formulated by saying that in the relationship to him, distance means that he, who is close by, is far, and strangeness means that he, who also is far, is actually near’ (Simmel 1950: 402).

He lives here and elsewhere and he experiences an interior nomadism, close to postmodern condition. ‘The stranger is by nature non “owner of soil” – soil not only in the physical, but also in the figurative sense of a life-substance which is fixed, if not in a point in space, at least in an ideal point of the social environment’ (Simmel 1950: 403).

From ‘no sense of place’ to ‘non-places’

Nowadays, the identification of social and physical space is overcome on different issues:

1. a shared, physical space does not entail a social space (Augé’s ‘non-places’);

2. on the contrary, a not shared physical space, does not necessarily entail the lack of a social space (Meyrowitz, ‘no sense of place’).

The first issue is related to the concept of ‘no-place’ proposed by Marc Augé. As Augé suggests, ‘If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a no-place’ (Augé 1995: 77-8).

A ‘no-place’ is a sort of ‘free zone’ where people meet each other without interacting: stations, airports, commercial areas, refugee camps, amusement parks, post offices and banks are conceived through this characteristic. They are physical spaces, in which people walk or stay for a short period but do not interact. It is difficult to say if absolute ‘non-places’ could really exist or a tendency to personalization can emerge even within them. The individuals need to reappropriate space either through social interactions or personal adaptation (Rossi 2006).

The second change which has occurred in the last few decades is due to the growing importance of mass media. This influence is quite opposite the notion of ‘non-places’.

The thesis is that the perfect correspondence between physical and social space, as described in the face-to-face model, belongs to the pre-modern societies, in which all the experiences were firsthand ones.

On the contrary, mass media determine a sui generis interaction space, which integrates different communication models, refusing any sense of place.

In this context, in his work No Sense of Place, Meyrowitz tries to mediate Goffman’s face-to-face model and McLuhan’s media communication model:

Goffman offers one factor that models behaviour: the ‘definition of the situation’ as it is shaped by particular interactional settings and audiences. Yet Goffman explicitly ignores changes in roles and the social order. McLuhan, on the other hand, points to widescale change in social roles resulting from the use of electronic media, but he provides no clear explanation of how and why electronic media may bring about such change. (Meyrowitz 1985: 4)

The lowest common denominator between Goffman and McLuhan is the structure of ‘social situations’.

I suggest that the mechanism through which electronic media affect social behaviour is not a mystical sensory balance, but a very discernible rearrangement of the social stages on which we play our roles and a resulting change in our sense of ‘appropriate behaviour’. For when audiences change, so do the social performances. (Meyrowitz 1985: 4)

Meyrowitz says that ‘situations’ are defined in terms of behaviours in physical places. Physical and social space are so rejoined; for example, when we say that a behaviour does not come up to somebody’s expectations, we say that it is ‘out of place’.

Similarly he says that:

although there are many logical reasons for the traditional focus on the placebound situations, a question that arises is whether behavioural settings must be places. That is, is it actually place that is a large determinant of behaviour, or is it something else that has traditionally been tied to, and therefore confused with, place? There is another key factor besides place mentioned in Goffman’s definition of regions that tends to get lost in most of his and other situationists’ discussions of behavioural settings: ‘barriers to perceptions’. Indeed, a close examination of the dynamics of situations and behaviour suggests that place itself is actually a sub-category of this more inclusive notion of a perceptual field. For while situations are usually defined in terms of who is in what location, the implicit issue is actually the types of behaviour that are available for other people’s scrutiny. (Meyrowitz 1985: 36)

The interaction context broadens and includes information that does not derive from the physical context. ‘It is not the physical setting itself that determines the nature of interaction, but the patterns of information flow. Indeed, the discussion of the definition of the situation can be entirely removed from the issue of direct physical presence by focusing only on information access’ (Meyrowitz 1985: 36). Meyrowitz stresses that ‘“Information” is used here in a special sense to mean social information: all that people are capable of knowing about the behaviour and actions of themselves and others. The term refers to that nebulous “stuff” we learn about each other in acts of communication’ (Meyrowitz 1985: 37).

Mediated and un-mediated interactions are strictly related and sometimes overlapping. Thus Meyrowitz says that the meaning of space in communication processes must be reconsidered. ‘As a result of electronically mediated interactions, the definition of situations and of behaviours is no longer determined by physical location. To be physically alone with someone is no longer necessarily to be socially alone with them’ (Meyrowitz 1985: 117).

In everyday life, face-to-face interactions and mediated interactions are mixed together. This redefines the notion of ‘space of interaction’: it is free from any references to a specific context (place) and includes different ways of communication.

A not shared physical space, does not necessarily entail the lack of a social space, but simply the redefinition of social space, regardless of face-to-face interactions, or furthermore, including them in a broader set of mediated, unmediated, and even imagined experiences.

Meyrowitz shows how dualism, which opposes different forms of interaction, is replaced by their overlap in everyday life. As he stresses, ‘it is very difficult to respond to one situation as if it were another. Parents’ exhortations that a child must finish all the food in a plate “because children are starving in Africa” are usually ineffective because so rarely are there any starving African children peering through the window’ (Meyrowitz 1985: 40-41). Many events could influence our behaviour even if we have never been present at them.

At the present time, individuals act ‘as if’ they had all the information about the others, looking at past experiences, images, second-hand information, all elements that are able to influence the final result of such an interaction.

The ‘dematerialization’ of space

The ‘space of flows’

The separation of physical and social space succeeded in producing a ‘dematerialization’ of space. A new form of space was born, defined by Castells as ‘space of flows’, which characterized the network society. ‘The space of flows is the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows’ (Castells 2000: 442).

Contemporary societies are being constructed on flows of capital, flows of information, flows of technology, flows of organizational interaction, flows of images, sounds, and symbols. ‘By flows I understand purposeful, repetitive, programmable sequences of exchange and interaction between physically disjointed positions held by social actors in the economic, political, and symbolic structures of society’ (Castells 2000: 442).

The space of flows, as the material form of support of dominant processes and functions in the network society, can be described by the combination of different layers of material supports:

The first layer, the first material support of the space of flows, is actually constituted by a circuit of electronic exchanges (…) that, together, form the material basis for the processes we have observed as being strategically crucial in the network society. This is indeed a material support of simultaneous practices. Thus, it is a spatial form, jus...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword by John Urry
• Preface
• Introduction: Studying (Im)mobility through a Politics of Proximity
• PART 1 CATEGORIES OF PROXIMITY/MOBILITY
• PART II DISCOURSE/IDENTITY ON PROXIMITY AND MOBILITY
• PART III GLOBAL FIRMS/URBAN LANDSCAPES AS SCENERY FOR PROXIMITY AND MOBILITY
• Index