TY - JOUR

T1 - Mobile technologies and the spatiotemporal configurations of institutional practice

AU - Shklovski, Irina

AU - Troshynski, Emily

AU - Dourish, Paul

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 ASIS&T.

PY - 2015/10

Y1 - 2015/10

N2 - One of the most significant contemporary technological trends is institutional adoption and use of mobile and location-based systems and services. We argue that the notion of "location" as it manifests itself in location-based systems is being produced as an object of exchange. Here we are specifically concerned with what happens to institutional roles, power relationships, and decision-making processes when a particular type of information - that of spatiotemporal location of people - is made into a technologically tradable object through the use of location-based systems. We examine the introduction of GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technologies by the California criminal justice system and the institution of parole for monitoring the movements of parolees, with consequences both for the everyday lives of these parolees and the work practices of their parole officers. We document the ways in which broad adoption of location-based and mobile technologies has the capacity to radically reconfigure the spatiotemporal arrangement of institutional processes. The presence of digital location traces creates new forms of institutional accountability, facilitates a shift in the understood relation between location and action, and necessitates new models of interpretation and sense making in practice.

AB - One of the most significant contemporary technological trends is institutional adoption and use of mobile and location-based systems and services. We argue that the notion of "location" as it manifests itself in location-based systems is being produced as an object of exchange. Here we are specifically concerned with what happens to institutional roles, power relationships, and decision-making processes when a particular type of information - that of spatiotemporal location of people - is made into a technologically tradable object through the use of location-based systems. We examine the introduction of GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technologies by the California criminal justice system and the institution of parole for monitoring the movements of parolees, with consequences both for the everyday lives of these parolees and the work practices of their parole officers. We document the ways in which broad adoption of location-based and mobile technologies has the capacity to radically reconfigure the spatiotemporal arrangement of institutional processes. The presence of digital location traces creates new forms of institutional accountability, facilitates a shift in the understood relation between location and action, and necessitates new models of interpretation and sense making in practice.

KW - human computer interaction

KW - information infrastructure

KW - ubiquitous computing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84948389206&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/asi.23321

DO - 10.1002/asi.23321

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84948389206

VL - 66

SP - 2098

EP - 2115

JO - American Society for Information Science and Technology. Journal

JF - American Society for Information Science and Technology. Journal

SN - 2330-1635

IS - 10

ER -