I connect, therefore I am!: places, locales, locations and informational territorialization

What is it about?

What connects us to certain locations? What determines the possession or ownership of certain locales? What is our place in cities? What are the in- formational boundaries of places and territories in contemporary cities? In this essay, we discuss the epistemological particularities of these concepts and try to diffe- rentiate them in order to clarify the processes of informational spatialization through tangible and intangible connections between our bodies, our minds, and our info-communicational presence in space. We seek to build an unders- tanding of how to think through the different forms of spatiality (territorialization, placemaking, locales, locations, etc.), and the recent developments in the human experience with information and communication technologies, es- pecially those most directly related to, or dependent on, geolocational and control functions. Finally, we highlight the importance of politicizing places and technologies to improve understanding of the processes involved in the turning of locales into places.

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Why is it important?

The aim of this study is to discuss some conceptual frameworks bound to the geographic space2and relate them to what we call “informational territorialization” (LEMOS, 2007) —supported by the increasingly complex relationships between man, space, and ICTs. This need arises from the convergence between the areas of communication and urban studies. Here, we discuss the socio-technical peacemaking and territorialization processes as the material bases of our own existence, and the notions of place, locale, location, and territorialization amid the expansion of ICTs.