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| Jenna Burrell on fieldwork in Ghana |
Tuan (1991, p694) argues that words create place: “public places are made and sustained by language.” Tuan (1991, p684) also illustrates the moral dimension of speech and how it can make a place seem either warm, or destroy its reputation and its visibility. Language has been used to create a sense of place in the Buy, Sell, Swap and Giveaway Facebook group I am observing. The group’s creator has described the site as a family-friendly site aimed at providing a fun and friendly environment for people to sell goods at reasonable prices. Such description establishes the group as a place for middle-class families to interact and share, thereby excluding anyone that doesn’t fit this profile. Cartoons of white people featured on the site, when coupled with the Australian flag on the banner, reinforces this as a place created by and for white people at the cultural/social exclusion of others.
Zuckerman (2013) discusses the concept of Internet social and cultural exclusion by highlighting the work of Jenna Burrell, an ethnographer and sociologist who has worked with youth in Internet cafes in Ghana. Zuckerman (2013) writes: “Burrell posits two types of exclusion: failure to include, and purposeful exclusion.” While I can’t be sure people of different ethnic backgrounds have been purposefully excluded from this Facebook group, the language and pictures employed fail to include the full range of people located in this geographical area who may want to join.
Reference List
Tuan, Y. (1991). Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696.
Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 5: Narratives and place. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Zuckerman, E. (2013, February 12). Who let all those Ghanians on the Internet? Jenna Burrell on Internet exclusion [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2013/02/12/who-let-all-those-ghanaians-on-the-internet-jenna-burrell-on-internet-exclusion/
Image Credits
Zuckerman, E. (2013). Jenna Burrell doing fieldwork in Ghana. Retrieved from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2013/02/12/who-let-all-those-ghanaians-on-the-internet-jenna-burrell-on-internet-exclusion/
It is quite sad how the less powerful cultures are segregated and disallowed to access a page on Facebook which should be open to everyone. This is clearly what van Tuyn (2013) was discussing when she stated that there are imposed categories of self with one being white and one being an abstract concept, the other. The other is segregated and what they have to say is silenced by the more powerful culture (van Tuyn, 2013). It is quite obvious that the creators of the Buy, Sell, Swap and Giveaway page have created the page as "an environment that is familiar to them", a "home place" (Tuan, 1991, p.868) to ensure they feel safe and accepted in their own virtual world. This is a clear example of how the virtual world reflects the real world as injustice, prejudice and racism are unfortunately common occurrences.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Tuan, Y-F. (1991). ‘Language and the making of place’. Annals of the Association of American Geographers (pp.684-696) Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 5, part 3. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au