Inhabiting Cyberspace and Emerging Cyberplaces

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 1-11

3. Geographies of Cyberspace: Internet, Community, Space, and Place

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 13-38

4. Unfolding Cyberspace: A Phenomenological Approach to Cyberplace, Technology, and Community

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 39-57

5. Methodology and Methods for Analysing Websites

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 59-71

6. The Contemporary Contrade of Siena

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 73-78

7. The Symbolical Realm and Historical Framework of the Contrade

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 79-85

8. The Websites of the Contrade

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 87-95

9. The Content of the Websites: Emergence of Intimate Cyberplaces

   • Tobias Boos

   Pages 97-109

10. Unfolding Cyberspace: Cyberplaces of the Contrade and the Style of Representation in the Global Arena

    • Tobias Boos

    Pages 111-119

11. Inhabiting Cyberspace and Emerging Cyberplaces

    • Tobias Boos

    Pages 121-127

12. Back Matter

    Pages 129-135

    PDF

This book explores the concept of cyberplace as a mode of inhabiting the contemporary world. As a result, it suggests that, for many communities, unlocking cyberspace and inhabiting cyberplaces is now an integral part of their coming-to-the-globalised-world. 


Boos reviews in the detail the existing academic literature from cultural anthropology, human geography, and sociology on “cyberspace”, concluding that a phenomenological perspective on cyberspace provides the possibility of gaining a deep understanding of our contemporary lifeworlds, in which on- and offline practices constantly intermingle. In four chapters, he applies the developed theoretical and methodological approaches to the case of Siena’s neighbourhoods, the contrade, analysing their websites and discussing the implications of his findings for understanding contemporary processes of community building and for future research on cyberspace.


This concise andaccessible book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in cultural anthropology, human geography, media studies and sociology.

• Cyberspace
• Internet
• Community
• Space and place
• social geography
• cultural geography
• Siena
• Neighbourhoods
• urban geography and urbanism

“An overdue study on the relationship between on- and offline lifeworlds which is of interdisciplinary appeal. Beyond its strong theoretical and methodological approaches the book shows how Siena's contrade appropriate cyberspace weaving a web of web-pages and in this way humanize such a powerful and multimedia communication tool.” (Fabio Mugnaini, Associate Professor, Storia delle tradizioni popolari, University of Siena)

• Institute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

  Tobias Boos

Tobias Boos is scientific assistant for cultural and social geography at the Institute of Geography at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. His research interests are diaspora studies, urban festival and the relation between processes of community building and new media.

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