skip to main content
10.1145/1620545.1620548acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesubicompConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

The commodification of location: dynamics of power in location-based systems

Published: 30 September 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Location-based ubiquitous computing systems are entering mainstream society and becoming familiar parts of everyday life. However, the settings in which they are deployed are already suffused with complex social dynamics. We report on a study of parole officers and parolees whose relationships are being transformed by location-based technologies. While parolees are clearly subjects of state discipline, the parole officers also find themselves subject to new responsibilities. This study highlights the complexities of power in sociotechnical systems and what happens when location becomes a tradable, technological object.

References

[1]
Barkhuus, L., Brown, B., Bell, M., Sherwood, S., Hall, M. and Chalmers, M., From awareness to repartee: Sharing location within social groups. In proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, (Florence, Italy, 2008), ACM.
[2]
Bittner, E. The police on skid-row: A study of peace keeping. American Sociological Review, 32 (5). 699--715, 1967.
[3]
Bowker, G.C. and Star, S.L. Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1999.
[4]
Brown, B. and Perry, M. Of maps and guidebooks: Designing geographical technologies. In proc. of ACM Conf. Designing Interactive Systems DIS 2002 (London, UK). 246--254, 2002.
[5]
Chan, J.B.L. The technological game: How information technology is transforming police practice. Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1 (2). 139--159, 2001.
[6]
Daston, L. and Galison, P. Objectivity. Zone Books, New York, 2007.
[7]
Dearman, D., Varshavsky, A., de Lara, E. and Truong, K. An Exploration of Location Error Estimation. in Proc. of Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2007), Springer, 2007, 181--198.
[8]
Dourish, P. and Anderson, K. Collective information practice: Emploring privacy and security as social and cultural phenomena. Human Computer Interaction, 21 (3). 319--342, 2006.
[9]
Foucault, M. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books, New York, 1977(1995).
[10]
Foucault, M. and Gordon, C. Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972--1977. Pantheon Books, New York, 1980.
[11]
Gilliom, J. Overseers of the poor: Surveillance, resistance, and the limits of privacy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001.
[12]
Harper, R.R. The computer game: Detectives, suspects, and technology. British Journal of Criminology, 31 (3). 292--307, 1991.
[13]
Hightower, J., Consolvo, S., LaMarca, A., Smith, I. and Hughes, J. Learning and recognizing the places we go. in In proc Intl. Conf. Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2005), 2005, 159--176.
[14]
Hong, J., Boriello, G., Landay, J., McDonald, D., Schillit, B. and Tygar, J. Privacy and security in the location-enhanced world wide web. in Proc. Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2003), Springer, Seattle, WA, 2003.
[15]
Iachello, G., Smith, I., Consolvo, S., Abowd, G.D., Hughes, J., Howard, J., Potter, F., Scott, J., Sohn, T., Hightower, J. and LaMarca, A. Control, deception, and communication: Evaluating the deployment of a location-enhanced messaging service. in Proc. of Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2005), Springer, 2005, 213--231.
[16]
Laurier, E. Why people say where they are during mobile phone calls. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19 (4). 485--504, 2001.
[17]
Leshed, G., Velden, T., Rieger, O., Kot, B. and Sengers, P., In-car GPS navigation: Engagement with and disengagement from the environment. In proceedings of the conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (Florence, Italy, 2008), ACM.
[18]
Lipsky, M. Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Sage, New York, 1980.
[19]
Manning, P.K. Technological dramas and the police: statement and counterstatement in organizational analysis. Criminology, 30 (3). 327--346, 1992.
[20]
Marx, K. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Penguin, London, 1867(1976).
[21]
Nguyen, D.H., Kobsa, A. and Hayes, G.R. An empirical investigation of concerns of everyday tracking and recording technologies. in Proc. Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2008), ACM, New York, 2008.
[22]
Orlikowski, W. Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective. Information Systems Research, 7 (1). 63--92., 1996.
[23]
Orlikowski, W. Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations. Organizational Science, 11, (4). 404--428, 2000.
[24]
Peckenpaugh, J. Controlling Sex Offender Reentry: Jessica's Law Measures in California {Electronic Version}. 2006, Retrieved 04-01-2009, from http://ssrn.com/paper=977263
[25]
Schegloff, E.A. Notes on conversational practice: Formulating place. in Sudnow, D. ed. Studies in Social Interaction, Free Press, New York, 1971, 75--119.
[26]
Shapin, S. The scientific life: A moral history of a late modern vocation. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
[27]
Sohn, T., Varshavsky, A., LaMarca, A., Chen, M., Choudhury, T., Smith, I., Consolvo, S., Hightower, J., Griswold, W. and de Lara, E. Mobility Detection Using Everyday GSM Traces. in Proc. of Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2006), Springer, 2006, 212--224.
[28]
Sorensen, C. and Pica, D. Tales from the police: Rhythms of interaction with mobile technologies. Information and Organization, 15 (2). 125--149, 2005.
[29]
Sudnow, D. Normal crimes: Sociological features of the penal code in a public defender office. Social Problems, 12 (3). 255--276, 1965.
[30]
Troshynski, E., Lee, C. and Dourish, P. Accountabilities of presence: Reframing location-based systems. in in proc of Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), ACM, New York, 2008.
[31]
Turner, S., Jannetta, J., Hess, J., Myers, R., Shah, R., Werth, R. and Whitby, A. Implementation and early outcomes for the San Diego high risk sex offender (HRSO) GPS pilot program report, CEBC, University of California, Irvine, 2007.
[32]
Van Maanen, J. Police socialization: A longitudinal examination of job attitudes in an urban police department. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20 (2). 207--228, 1975.
[33]
Van Maanen, J. The asshole. in Manning, P.K. and Van Maanen, J. eds. Policing: A view from the street, Goodyear, Santa Monica, CA, 1978, 221--238.
[34]
Wieder, D.L. Language and social reality: The case of telling the convict code. Mouton, The Hague, 1974.
[35]
Zafiroglu, A. and Chang, M. Digital homes on wheels: Designing for the unimagined home. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 11 (5). 395--402, 2007.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Working against the clock: digital surveillance in US Medicaid homecare servicesJournal of Sociology10.1177/14407833231226097Online publication date: 1-Feb-2024
  • (2024)Not Just A Dot on The Map: Food Delivery Workers as InfrastructureProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641918(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Accounting for Privacy Pluralism: Lessons and Strategies from Community-Based Privacy GroupsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581331(1-12)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. The commodification of location: dynamics of power in location-based systems

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    UbiComp '09: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Ubiquitous computing
    September 2009
    292 pages
    ISBN:9781605584317
    DOI:10.1145/1620545
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 30 September 2009

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. discipline
    2. gps
    3. power
    4. surveillance

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    Ubicomp '09
    Ubicomp '09: The 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing
    September 30 - October 3, 2009
    Florida, Orlando, USA

    Acceptance Rates

    UbiComp '09 Paper Acceptance Rate 31 of 251 submissions, 12%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 764 of 2,912 submissions, 26%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)20
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Working against the clock: digital surveillance in US Medicaid homecare servicesJournal of Sociology10.1177/14407833231226097Online publication date: 1-Feb-2024
    • (2024)Not Just A Dot on The Map: Food Delivery Workers as InfrastructureProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641918(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)Accounting for Privacy Pluralism: Lessons and Strategies from Community-Based Privacy GroupsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581331(1-12)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
    • (2021)Data Work in Education: Enacting and Negotiating Care and Control in Teachers' Use of Data-Driven Classroom Surveillance TechnologyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34795965:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
    • (2021)Work of the UnemployedProceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3461778.3462003(438-448)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
    • (2021)AnshimiProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34492215:CSCW1(1-21)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2021
    • (2021)‘I would have Preferred an Ankle Tag’: The Lived Experience of a Nationwide Quarantine AppProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3447526.3472063(1-13)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2021
    • (2021)Who and Where: Affordances of Personalization and LocativityWiring the Streets, Surfing the Square10.1007/978-3-030-66672-9_9(151-170)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2021
    • (2020)Gendered by DesignACM Transactions on Social Computing10.1145/33646852:4(1-22)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2020
    • (2020)Under Surveillance: Technology Practices of those Monitored by the StateProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376889(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media