P. Dourish. Re-space-ing place: “place” and “space” ten years on. In Proceedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW06), Banff, Alberta, Canada, November 4-8 2006. Association for Computing Machinery. [pdf]

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This paper elaborate further Harrison and Dourish’s paper on how place is the social product of space. The author stress out how, due to recent technological development, this idea needs to be reconsidered and adjusted.

First of all, the initial paper seems to suggest that space is perceived before place emerges. This is called the layer-cake model. His current view would see exacly the contrary, being space a social product just as much as place: the conceptual resources that we have at hand when we talk about space are the products of particular kinds of social practice.

The second point contained in the article follows from the first point: space and place are the products of emboided social practice. Therefore the question is not what feature of the space are conductive to the creation or emergence of place but what are the relationship between spatiality and practices and how multiple spatialities might intersect.

This second point is suggested by the power geometry: “… the production of space is conditioned by one’s access to and legitimacy within that space. Encounters with space occur within specific contexts, and the spatialities that result reflect those contexts.

Tags: geography, human communication, human computer interaction, power geometry, Computer Supported Collaborative Work, ubiquitous computing