Technosocial Space: Connecting People and Places

Abstract

The chapter is based on a study of Internet cafés in Norway, and interrogates the way space and place is produced in interconnections between people and technology in the Internet café. Drawing on actornetwork theory and practice-oriented theories of place and space, the Internet café is understood as technosocial spaces producing connections between people and places at different levels. Firstly, the Internet café can be understood as a hybrid, a site where users and technologies as well as space are coconstructed in entwined processes where gender, as well as other identity markers, are central in the way the technology, as well as the cafés, develop and are understood. The next level looks at the production of Internet cafés as technosocial spaces. Despite being perceived as an “urban” and “global” phenomenon, Internet cafés are configured based on local circumstances, in urban as well as rural communities. Differing images of what the cafés want to achieve, as well as material constrains, are at play in this process. Finally, the chapter shows how Internet cafés are places of connections, producing space beyond the walls of the café, linking the local into a translocal sphere.