Transnational space and the ‘network society’

Abstract

The issue that this paper addresses is whether we live in a network society and what spatial implications networking has for society. A network is the inner structure of a self-organising system comprised of parts, their relationships/interactions and the patterns that emerge from the interactions. Space is made by all internal structures of a system that are delimited by a system border from an environment; it is the area of activity and interaction of a system. Each social system has its own space, i.e. it is based on transformed parts of nature, created artefacts and human bodies that are related to each other at a certain (variable and changing) distance. Society creates space, space creates society, people modify and (re)create the spaces they live in and in turn are modified by them. The term ‘network society’ obscures the continuity of domination and capitalism and stresses the discontinuity brought about by the increasing importance of computer networks, knowledge and transnationalism. It is suggested that ‘global network capitalism’ is a more suitable term. Global network capitalism is based on a transnational organisational model, organisations cross national boundaries, the novel aspect is that organisations and social networks are increasingly globally distributed, that actors and substructures are located globally and change dynamically (new nodes can be continuously added and removed), and that the flows of capital, power, money, commodities, people and information are processed globally at high-speed. Cyberspace allows the global flexibilisation and global extension of social systems in space, and the overcoming of temporal limits, it supports the transnationalisation of capitalism. Global network capitalism is based on structural inequalities; it is made up of segmented (economic, political, cultural) spaces in which central hubs (transnational corporations, certain political actors, regions, and countries, western lifestyles and worldviews) centralise the production, control and flows of economic, political and cultural capital (property, power, skills). Global network capitalism is an antagonistic system; transnational networks are both spaces of domination and spaces of potential liberation from domination. Network commons challenge network capitalism, networked control is challenged by networked participation, and networked manipulation by networked wisdom.

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