[Ethnocomm] e-seminar

[Saskia Witteborn]

Thank you, Tamar and Wendy, for the exciting contributions, and Lydia for
kick-starting the conversation. And a big "thank you" to David for
initiating our digital encounter.



I am particularly struck by the concept of spatiality. Tamar argues that
spatiality is an inherent part of an EC and a speech codes approach, based
on Philipsen's (1997) conceptualization of speech codes as historically
situated and socially constructed. But she also argues that spatiality has
been favored at the cost of temporality. Wendy addresses spatiality with
the turn to process, another important move. In the following, I try to
incorporate both concepts into my remarks on place, mobility, code, and new
technologies.



Due to my focus on migration studies, one question I have been
contemplating is related to Wendy’s point about process and Lydia’s comment
on mobility and speech codes. My question is how speech codes and
communicative practices become mobile. What happens when communicative
practices and codes move physically and digitally? How is all of that
related to a sense of the "local" and place and how is place reproduced
elsewhere through communicative practice and codes?



These questions relate directly to Tamar's point of turning to new
technologies and Wendy’s point on process. Turning to encoding and process
and the materiality of our highly mediatized world means theorizing social
conduct in relation to space and time. Mobile interfaces change social
relations and with it the idea of space and time (see de Souza e Silva &
Frith 2012). When I am standing in the subway in Hong Kong, people are
absorbed in their virtual spaces, are here and there, and certainly
somewhere. When I am in a mountain village in China, taking out my mobile
phone, clicking on the Skype symbol, this moment becomes an interactional
move, where the phone is not only tool but a sign of spatial connectivity
across time zones, a conversation starter, a point of spatial and social
convergence, and an interactional scene.



These observations are helpful in asking conceptual questions. One of such
questions is about how codes developing in the intersections between
sociality and new technologies change our understanding of spatial
relations, place, and “culture”. New technologies can “dis”place situated
communicative codes (e.g., on platforms like Instagram, Youtube, Weibo,
Facebook, etc.) and they can create new ones. “Codes” related to the
digital are not only growing out of historical interpersonal/intergroup
interactions but are also codes linked to neoliberal values being
globalized. How do we account for the “culture” of the market, which
encodes for us to be spatially connected in certain ways? And where is the
“cultural” here? How do “market” codes merge with codes from culturally
situated groups, moral, and political codes (e.g., "self-expression" which
connects young people worldwide on platforms like Instagram, Facebook,
WeChat, and Weibo)? What is the nature of place in these scenarios? And how
do the codes develop and change over time?


-- 
Saskia Witteborn
Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication
Program Director MA in Global Communication
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
Phone: +852-3943-7668
Fax: +852-2603-5007
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