Understanding socio-locative practices

Abstract

With the institutionalization and commercialization of locative technical infrastructures such as the global positioning system (GPS), the physical world is increasingly becoming one of ubiquitous locatability as well as connectability. This technical backdrop has proven to be an incubator for location-based applications and services, which in turn are engendering a new set of practices. When these practices involve interactions between people, we might call them 'socio-locative.' My research utilizes interviews and artifact tracking to establish a grounded ethnographic understanding of the motivations behind and impacts of these new socio-locative practices. The study design focuses on two social practices that have locative and non-locative variants: photo sharing on Flickr (with and without geotags) and broadcast microbloging via Jaiku (locative) and Twitter (nonlocative). My expected findings include a greater awareness of a new type of hybrid social space that bonds the virtual and material, as well as insights into how locative metadata acts as an organizing force for social interaction.