Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica
This chapter offers a critical reading of the assumptions inherent in what constitutes “location” in the notion of “location technologies,” particularly when considered in relation to extreme environments and places outside national boundaries. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the Antarctic Peninsul...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Other Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Book Part |
Language: | English |
Published: |
U.K., Routledge
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/reader.action?docID=5646056&ppg=127 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:52153 |
id |
ftunivwestsyd:oai:researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au:uws_52153 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivwestsyd:oai:researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au:uws_52153 2023-05-15T13:32:11+02:00 Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica Salazar, Juan Francisco (R11072) Wilken, Rowan (Editor) Goggin, Gerard (Editor) Horst, Heather A. (Editor) Institute for Culture and Society (Host institution) 2019 print 10 https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/reader.action?docID=5646056&ppg=127 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:52153 eng eng U.K., Routledge Location Technologies in International Context--9781138682948--9781315544823 pp: 108-117 200102 - Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 160104 - Social and Cultural Anthropology 970120 - Expanding Knowledge in Languages Communication and Culture mass media Internet digital media ethnology Antarctica book chapter Text 2019 ftunivwestsyd 2020-12-05T18:42:45Z This chapter offers a critical reading of the assumptions inherent in what constitutes “location” in the notion of “location technologies,” particularly when considered in relation to extreme environments and places outside national boundaries. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the Antarctic Peninsula from 2012 to 2015, the brief ethnographic interventions provided here offer a schematic overview of the geopolitical and social dimensions of media use and telecommunications infrastructures in Antarctic settlements, particularly in King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. In this chapter, I look at the use of social media and location-based technologies, exploring how they reinforce geography and a sense of place for their users. I ask whether the use of location technologies leads to a significant shift in the relational bond between mobility and place, and whether extreme environments open up possibilities for how we might think of place-making in relation to communication technologies. More specifically, I ask, how do we account for the ways in which telecommunications have reconfigured Antarctica as a space amid the growing centrality of the Polar Regions in global geopolitics and environmental politics? The key aim of this chapter is thus to examine the world-making capacities afforded by technological infrastructures in general and location technologies in particular, as they shape both particular modes of governance practiced by a range of states operating in the area and the relational dynamics of social life there. By world-making, I refer to the generative force of information and communication infrastructures as overlapping sociotechnical systems, particularly in the ways that they shape the character of human settlement in extreme environments such as Antarctica. Antarctica is not only a laboratory for science, but utmost, a laboratory for understanding how human settlements in extreme environments – uninhabitable until very recently – are transforming these fragile ecosystems. Communications infrastructures are vital to sustaining human settlements in extreme environments, such as Antarctica. Information infrastructures are not only essential to the conduct of scientific research in the Antarctic, they are also the operational backbone of life there. And yet, little research has been conducted thus far on how location technologies and services work in extreme environments and extraterritorial spaces such as Antarctica, and how these can help us to understand the role of infrastructure and logistics as forms of governance. Book Part Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica King George Island University of Western Sydney (UWS): Research Direct Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island The Antarctic |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Western Sydney (UWS): Research Direct |
op_collection_id |
ftunivwestsyd |
language |
English |
topic |
200102 - Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 160104 - Social and Cultural Anthropology 970120 - Expanding Knowledge in Languages Communication and Culture mass media Internet digital media ethnology Antarctica |
spellingShingle |
200102 - Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 160104 - Social and Cultural Anthropology 970120 - Expanding Knowledge in Languages Communication and Culture mass media Internet digital media ethnology Antarctica Salazar, Juan Francisco (R11072) Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
topic_facet |
200102 - Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies 160104 - Social and Cultural Anthropology 970120 - Expanding Knowledge in Languages Communication and Culture mass media Internet digital media ethnology Antarctica |
description |
This chapter offers a critical reading of the assumptions inherent in what constitutes “location” in the notion of “location technologies,” particularly when considered in relation to extreme environments and places outside national boundaries. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the Antarctic Peninsula from 2012 to 2015, the brief ethnographic interventions provided here offer a schematic overview of the geopolitical and social dimensions of media use and telecommunications infrastructures in Antarctic settlements, particularly in King George Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. In this chapter, I look at the use of social media and location-based technologies, exploring how they reinforce geography and a sense of place for their users. I ask whether the use of location technologies leads to a significant shift in the relational bond between mobility and place, and whether extreme environments open up possibilities for how we might think of place-making in relation to communication technologies. More specifically, I ask, how do we account for the ways in which telecommunications have reconfigured Antarctica as a space amid the growing centrality of the Polar Regions in global geopolitics and environmental politics? The key aim of this chapter is thus to examine the world-making capacities afforded by technological infrastructures in general and location technologies in particular, as they shape both particular modes of governance practiced by a range of states operating in the area and the relational dynamics of social life there. By world-making, I refer to the generative force of information and communication infrastructures as overlapping sociotechnical systems, particularly in the ways that they shape the character of human settlement in extreme environments such as Antarctica. Antarctica is not only a laboratory for science, but utmost, a laboratory for understanding how human settlements in extreme environments – uninhabitable until very recently – are transforming these fragile ecosystems. Communications infrastructures are vital to sustaining human settlements in extreme environments, such as Antarctica. Information infrastructures are not only essential to the conduct of scientific research in the Antarctic, they are also the operational backbone of life there. And yet, little research has been conducted thus far on how location technologies and services work in extreme environments and extraterritorial spaces such as Antarctica, and how these can help us to understand the role of infrastructure and logistics as forms of governance. |
author2 |
Wilken, Rowan (Editor) Goggin, Gerard (Editor) Horst, Heather A. (Editor) Institute for Culture and Society (Host institution) |
format |
Book Part |
author |
Salazar, Juan Francisco (R11072) |
author_facet |
Salazar, Juan Francisco (R11072) |
author_sort |
Salazar, Juan Francisco (R11072) |
title |
Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
title_short |
Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
title_full |
Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
Location technologies in extreme environments : the case of King George Island, Antarctica |
title_sort |
location technologies in extreme environments : the case of king george island, antarctica |
publisher |
U.K., Routledge |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/reader.action?docID=5646056&ppg=127 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:52153 |
geographic |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula King George Island The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica King George Island |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica King George Island |
op_relation |
Location Technologies in International Context--9781138682948--9781315544823 pp: 108-117 |
_version_ |
1766024871822753792 |