Abstract
‘Plug&Play’ is a technological term describing the immediate usability of items in a system without having to configure them. Referring to this term, the present chapter introduces the heuristic concept of ‘plug&play places’, which allows for an understanding of the meaning of places for multilocal people. Based on a set of 25 qualitative interviews with creative knowledge workers, this concept was developed in order to illustrate a specific feature of places within multilocal lifeworlds. This specific feature consists in the fact that multilocal persons configure a new place upon their first arrival, but on subsequent visits these places are immediately functional and usable within their multilocal lifeworlds. They standardize the places to be ‘plug&playable’ in their lifeworlds. Comparing this finding to the existing body of literature on the standardization of space and places, it is argued that one has to distinguish between a subjective and an objective type of standardization of places, with the former not necessarily changing the physical space. Every multilocal person proceeds to an individual configuration of these places, in which only a limited quantity of objectively standardized elements are incorporated. In this sense, ideas of objective standardization of space have to be examined critically as mobile lifestyles do not automatically resort to objectively standardized places.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aguiton, C., & Cardon, D. (2007). The strength of weak cooperation: An attempt to understand the meaning of Web 2.0. Communications & Strategies Quarter 1, 65, 51–65.
Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: An introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London, New York: Verso.
Bigelow, S. J. (1999). The plug & play book. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bröckling, U. (2007). Das unternehmerische Selbst: Soziologie einer Subjektivierungsform. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.
Buttimer, A. (1976). Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 66(2), 277–292.
Cave, R. E. (2000). Creative industries: Contracts between art and commerce. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press.
Charmaz, K. (2008). Grounded theory as an emergent method. In S. N. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of emergent methods (pp. 155–170). New York, London: The Guilford Press.
Clarke, A. E. (2007). Grounded theory: Critiques, debates, and situational analysis. In W. Outhwaite & S. P. Turner (Eds.), The sage handbook of social science methodology (pp. 423–442). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Downs, R. M., & Stea, D. (1977). Maps in minds: Reflections on cognitive mapping. New York: Harper & Row.
Duchêne-Lacroix, C. (2009). Mit Abwesenheit umgehen. Kontinuität und Verankerung einer transnationalen Lebensführung jenseits territorialer Abgrenzungen. Informationen zur Raumentwicklung, 1/2.2009: 87–98.
Duyvendak, J. W. (2011). The politics of home: Belonging and Nostalgia in Western Europe and the United States. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Favell, A. (2008). Eurostars and Eurocities: Free movement and mobility in an integrating Europe. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community & everyday life. New York: Basic Books.
Friebe, H., & Lobo, S. (2006). Wir nennen es Arbeit: Die digitale Boheme oder: Intelligentes Leben jenseits der Festanstellung. Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.
Gill, R., & Pratt, A. (2008). In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. Theory, Culture and Society, 25(7–8), 1–30. doi:10.1177/0263276408097794.
Hesmondhalgh, D., & Baker, S. (2008). Creative work and emotional labour in the television industry. Theory, Culture and Society, 25(7–8), 97–118. doi:10.1177/0263276408097798.
Hopf, C. (1995). Qualitative interviews in der Sozialforschung. Ein Überblick. In U. Flick, E. von Kardorff, H. Keupp, L. von Rosenstiel, & S. Wolff (Eds.), Handbuch Qualitative Sozialforschung: Grundlagen, Konzepte, Methoden und Anwendungen. Psychologie. Weinheim Union, Verlags: 177–182.
Johns, T., & Gratton, L. (2013). The third wave of virtual work. Harvard Business Review, 2013, 1–9.
Kelsey, J., & Kelsey, J. (1995). Programming plug and play. Indianapolis: SAMS.
Kleining, G., & Witt, H. (2000). The qualitative heuristic approach: A methodology for discovery in psychology and the social sciences. Rediscovering the method of introspection as an example. Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Forum qualitative Sozialforschung), 1(1), Art. 13. Avialable at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/download/1123/2496. Accessed 31 May 2015.
Lange, B. (2007). Die Räume der Kreativszenen: Culturepreneurs und ihre Orte in Berlin. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Larsen, J., Urry, J., & Axhausen, K. (2006). Mobilities, networks, geographies. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Martin-Brelot, H., Grossetti, M., Eeckert, D., Gritsai, O., & Kovács, Z. (2010). The spatial mobility of the ‘creative class’: A European perspective. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(4), 854–870. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00960.
Martinotti, G. (1996). Four populations: Human settlements and social morphology in contemporary Metropolis. European Review, 4(1), 3–23. doi:10.1017/S1062798700001708.
Mühler, K., & Opp, K. D. (2006). Region–Nation–Europa: Die Dynamik regionaler und überregionaler Identifikation. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Nadler, R., & Montanari, G. (2013). Der Wohnbegriff in der Multilokalitätsforschung – Überlegungen anhand der Beispielgruppen Großeltern in Nachtrennungsfamilien und kreative WissensarbeiterInnen. In J. Scheiner, H. H. Blotevogel, S. Frank, C. Holz-Rau, & N. Schuster (Eds.), Mobilitäten und Immobilitäten. Menschen – Ideen – Dinge – Kulturen – Kapital. Klartext Verlag, Essen: 417–430.
Nadler, R. (2014). Plug&play places: Lifeworlds of multilocal creative knowledge workers. Warsaw, Berlin: De Gruyter Open. Available at: http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/447763. Accessed May 31, 2015.
Nowicka, M. (2005). Transnational professionals and their cosmopolitan universes. Munich: Campus.
Oberhuber, N. (2014). Mikroapartments: Vor zu viel Enge wird gewarnt. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Online, March 23, 2014. Available at: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/lebensstil/drinnen-draussen/mikroapartments-vor-zu-viel-enge-wird-gewarnt-12859209.html. Accessed May 31, 2015.
Pethe, H., Hafner, S., & Lawton, P. (2010). Transnational migrants in the creative knowledge industries: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin and Munich. In S. Musterd & A. Murie (Eds.), Making competitive cities (pp. 163–191). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Petzold, K. (2010). Wenn sich alles um den Locus dreht: Multilokalität, Multilokation, multilokales Wohnen, Inter- und Translokalität als Begriffe der Mehrfachverortung. In M. Hühn, D. Lerp, K. Petzold, & M. Stock (Eds.), Transkulturalität, Transnationalität, Transstaatlichkeit, Translokalität (pp. 235–257). Theoretische und empirische Begriffsbestimmungen: LIT Verlag, Münster, Hamburg, London.
Ploch, B. (1995). Eignen sich Mental Maps zur Erforschung des Stadtraumes? Möglichkeiten der Methode. kea. Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 8 (Stadtdschungel): 23–41.
Ritzer, G. (1993). The mcdonaldization of society: An investigation into the changing character of contemporary social life. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2010). McDonaldization: The reader. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Rolshoven, J. (2006). Woanders daheim. Kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze zur multilokalen Lebensweise in der Spätmoderne. Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 102 (2006 II): 179–194.
Scherke, K. (2011). Transnationalität als Herausforderung für die soziologische Migrationsforschung. In G. Marinelli-König & A. Preisinger (Eds.), Zwischenräume der Migration (pp. 79–90). Transcript, Bielefeld: Über die Entgrenzung von Kulturen und Identitäten.
Scholz, G. (2011). Der SaarLorLux-Raum zwischen Realität, Illusion und Vision: Wahrnehmung und aktionsräumliches Verhalten aus der Sicht von Bewohnern einer europäischen Grenzregion. Saarbrücken: Institut für Landeskunde im Saarland e.V.
Schürmann, M. (Ed.). (2013). Coworking Space. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden: Geschäftsmodell für Entrepreneure und Wissensarbeiter.
Shanley, T. (1995). Plug and play system architecture. Colorado Springs: MindShare Inc.
Stock, M. (2009) Polytopisches Wohnen – ein phänomenologisch-prozessorientierter Zugang. Informationen zur Raumentwicklung, 1/2.2009: 107–116.
UPnP Implementers Corporation. (2006). UPnP™ technology—The simple, seamless home network. San Francisco. Available at: http://upnp.org/resources/whitepapers/UPnP%20Technology_The%20Simple,%20Seamless%20Home%20Network_whitepaper.pdf. Accessed May 31, 2015.
Urry, J. (2000). Sociology beyond societies—Mobilities for the twenty-first century. London, New York: Routledge.
Veryard, R. (2001). The component-based business: Plug and play. London, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Vonderach, G. (1997). Geschichtenhermeneutik. In R. Hitzler & A. Honer (Eds.), Sozialwissenschaftliche Hermeneutik: Eine Einführung (pp. 165–189). Opladen: Leske + Budrich.
Weichhart, P. (1990). Raumbezogene Identität: Bausteine zu einer Theorie räumlich-sozialer Kognition und Identifikation. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Weichhart, P. (2009). Multilokalität – Konzepte, Theoriebezüge und Forschungsfragen. Informationen zur Raumentwicklung, 1/2.2009: 1–14.
Werlen, B. (2000). Sozialgeographie: Eine Einführung. Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna: Haupt Verlag/UTB.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nadler, R. (2016). Plug&Play Places: Subjective Standardization of Places in Multilocal Lifeworlds. In: Pucci, P., Colleoni, M. (eds) Understanding Mobilities for Designing Contemporary Cities. Research for Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22578-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22578-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22577-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22578-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)