Disentangling: The Geographies of

Digital Disconnection André Jansson

And Paul C. Adams
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Disentangling
 Disentangling
The Geographies of Digital Disconnection
Edited by
André Jansson and Paul C. Adams

1
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Contents

Acknowledgments  vii
Editors  ix
Contributors  xi

Introduction: Rethinking the Entangling Force

of Connective Media  1
Paul C. Adams and André Jansson

PART I: POW ER G E O M E TR I E S O F CO N N E CT I V I TY
1. Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance to
Geosurveillance  23
David Swanlund

2. Locational Technologies in Post-​disaster Infrastructure

Space: Uneven Access to OpenStreetMap in Post-​
earthquake Haiti  41
Mimi Sheller

3. Disconnection as Distinction: A Bourdieusian Study of

Where People Withdraw from Digital Media  61
Karin Fast, Johan Lindell, and André Jansson

4. Digital Disconnection as Othering: Immersion,

“Authenticity” and the Politics of Experience  91
Neriko Musha Doerr

PA RT II: ( DIS )CON N ECTED LIVES

5. Automating Digital Afterlives  115
Robbie Fordyce, Bjørn Nansen, Michael Arnold,
Tamara Kohn, and Martin Gibbs
vi Contents
6. Senses and Sensors of Sleep: Digital Mediation and
Disconnection in Sleep Architectures  137
Bjørn Nansen, Kate Mannell, and Christopher O’Neill

7. Digital Ruins: Virtual Worlds as Landscapes of

Disconnection  163
Gonzalo C. Garcia and Vincent Miller

8. “Think on Paper, Share Online”: Interrogating the Sense

of Slowness and Disconnection in the Rise of Shouzhang in
China  189
Yan Yuan

PA RT III: RE TH IN KIN G D ISCON N ECTION I N A

D I S RUPTE D WORLD
9. Disconnect to Reconnect! Self-​help to Regain an Authentic
Sense of Space Through Digital Detoxing  227
Gunn Enli and Trine Syvertsen

10. Retreat Culture and Therapeutic Disconnection  253

Pepita Hesselberth

11. Networked Intimacies: Pandemic Dis/​Connections

Between Anxiety, Joy, and Laughter  273
Jenny Sundén

12. Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  295

Paul C. Adams, Vivie Behrens, Steven Hoelscher, Olga Lavrenova,
Heath Robinson, and Yan Yuan

Index  325
Acknowledgments

This book is the result of several years of deliberation on digital disconnec-

tion or, as we eventually came to call it, disentangling. We started with a
shared interest in studying how, why, where, and when people are able to
get away from things like e-​mail and Skype. However, we relied on those
digital technologies to stay in touch despite living some 8000 km (5000
mi) apart. This sort of long-​distance collaboration hardly merits attention
at this point—​a fact that indicates how far so many of us have come over
the past several decades in normalizing long-​distance work routines and so-
cializing. Still, Skype calls and e-​mail only maintained the impetus brought
to this project by our opportunities to travel abroad for a mix of collabor-
ation and sightseeing. Paul got to visit the retreat where André unraveled
digital entanglements, and André got to visit the retreat where Paul unrav-
eled digital entanglements. These places, where each of us felt connected to
the slow rhythms of life—​more in touch with material objects, animals, and
the weather—​played a role in prompting us to reflect on what we meant by
disentangling and the limits of this endeavor.
André is grateful for the seed funding he received in 2019 from the
Geomedia Research Group for traveling to the United States and developing
trans-​Atlantic collaborations, of which this book is one of the outcomes.
Paul benefited from funding by the Anne-​Marie and Gustaf Ander
Foundation for Media Research which allowed him to visit Karlstad
University as Ander Visiting Professor in Global Media Studies from 2016
to 2017, as well as a Supplemental College Research Fellowship from the
College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. This research visit
planted the seeds for the project.
Both authors also wish to express their appreciation for the interest and
support of Oxford University Press, particularly Sarah Humphreville whose
initial visit in Austin helped get this project going. It seems odd to thank a
pandemic, but it must be admitted that COVID-​19 did serve as a cattle-​prod
to make us painfully aware of certain things that made it into this book.
viii Acknowledgments

André wants to thank Karin for making everyday companionship so ex-

citing, even during the current period of social enclosure, liquid home of-
fices, and remodeled logistics.
Paul is grateful, as always, to Karina for putting up with him when his
head is in the clouds, which is always the case when working on a project like
this. Paul is also grateful to his brother, Steve, for helping make his writing
retreat a bit more habitable.

Austin, Texas, USA, April 2021

Karlstad, Sweden, April 2021
Editors

André Jansson is Professor of Media and Communication Studies and

Director of the Geomedia Research Group at Karlstad University, Sweden.
His most recent books are Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in
Digital Modernity (with Karin Fast, Routledge, 2019) and Mediatization and
Mobile Lives: A Critical Approach (Routledge, 2018).

Paul C. Adams is Professor of Geography at the University of Texas at

Austin. He is the author of Geographies of Media and Communication
(Wiley-​Blackwell, 2009), co-​author of Communications/​Media/​Geographies
(Routledge, 2016), and co-​editor of the Research Companion to Media
Geography (Ashgate, 2014).
Contributors

Michael Arnold is Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science Program in the
Arts Faculty at the University of Melbourne. His research lies at the intersection of
technology and contemporary life.

Vivie Behrens graduated with highest honors from the University of Texas at Austin,
where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Arts in
Humanities. Behrens works at the intersection of visual art, American studies, media
studies, transnational feminist theory, photography, and public humanities.

Neriko Musha Doerr received a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Cornell

University. She currently teaches at Ramapo College in New Jersey, USA, and does
research on politics of difference, language and power, and education including study
abroad and civic engagement in Japan, Aotearoa/​New Zealand, and the United States.

Gunn Enli is Professor of Media Studies, University of Oslo. Enli’s books include The
Media Welfare State (2014), Mediated Authenticity (2015), and Routledge Companion
to Social Media and Politics (2016). She participates in the project Intrusive Media,
Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox) from 2019 to 2023.​

Karin Fast is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Media and

Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden, but during 2020 to 2021 holds a full-​
time research position at the Department of Media and Communication, University
of Oslo, Norway. She is the author of Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness
in Digital Modernity (with André Jansson, 2019).

Robbie Fordyce is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash

University. His research focuses on the rules and exploits of digital systems and
platforms.

Gonzalo C. Garcia is a novelist and Creative Writing Lecturer at the University of

Warwick. His recent novel, We Are the End, is heavily influenced by his interest in
video games, digital culture, and everyday constructions of narrative.

Martin Gibbs is Associate Professor in Human-​Computer Interaction in the School

of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. He is the co-​
author of the recent books Death and Digital Media (2018) and Digital Domesticities
(2020).
xii Contributors
Pepita Hesselberth is Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Culture at the Centre for
the Arts in Society at Leiden University and the Director of the Netherlands Institute
for Cultural Analysis (NICA).

Steven Hoelscher is Professor of American Studies and Geography, Faculty Curator

of Photography at the Harry Ransom Center, and Associate Dean of Academic
Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor
Hoelscher’s research interests include the history of photography, race and racism,
North American and European urbanism, social constructions of space and place,
and cultural memory.

Tamara Kohn is Professor of Anthropology in the School of Social and Political

Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Recent co-​authored books include Death
and Digital Media (2018), Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured (2019), and Sounding
Out Japan: An Ethnographic Tour (2020).

Olga Lavrenova is Leading Researcher at the Institute of Scientific Information on

Human Science (INION) RAS, Professor of MISIS and GITR (Moscow, Russia)
as well as honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and President of the
International Association for Semiotic of Space and Time (https://​www.ias-​st.com).
She is the author of Spaces and Meanings: Semantics of the Cultural Landscape (2019)
and the long-​term interdisciplinary project The Geography of Art.

Johan Lindell is Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics and Media at

Uppsala University, Sweden.

Kate Mannell recently completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne on how

young adults negotiate their social availability via mobile messaging. Her work has
appeared in the Journal of Computer-​Mediated Communication, Mobile Media and
Communication, and Platform: Journal of Media and Communication.

Vincent Miller is Reader in Sociology and Cultural Studies at the University of Kent.
He has recently published two books on the digital: Understanding Digital Culture
(Second Edition, 2020) and The Crisis of Presence in Contemporary Culture (2015),
both with SAGE Publications.

Bjørn Nansen is Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of

Melbourne; his research focuses on emerging forms of digital media use in everyday
life. He is the author of Young Children and Mobile Media (2020) and co-​author of
Death and Digital Media (2018) and Digital Domesticity: Media, Materiality and
Home Life (2020).
 Contributors xiii
Christopher O’Neill has recently completed a PhD thesis at the University of
Melbourne on the genealogy of biosensors in the fields of medicine, labor, and the
home. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Science, Technology & Human
Values, and First Monday, and he has served as Editor in Chief of Platform: Journal of
Media and Communication.

Heath Robinson is a doctoral candidate working in the Department of Curriculum

and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focus includes so-
cial studies education, pre-​service teacher preparation, teacher identity, curriculum
studies, and cultural memory.

Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology, Head of the Sociology Department, and

founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel
University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-​editor of the journal Mobilities and
author or co-​editor of 12 books, including most recently Island Futures: Caribbean
Survival in the Anthropocene (2020) and Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in
an Age of Extremes (2018).

Jenny Sundén is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Karlstad

University, Sweden. Her work is situated in the intersection of digital media studies,
feminist and queer theory, and affect theory.

David Swanlund is PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University studying location

privacy and GIScience.

Trine Syvertsen is Professor of Media Studies, University of Oslo. Syvertsen’s books

include The Media Welfare State (2014); Media Resistance; Protest, Dislike, Abstention
(2017); and Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting (2020). She chairs the project
Intrusive Media, Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox) from 2019 to 2023.

Yan Yuan is Professor in Journalism and Communication School at the Huazhong

University. She initiated a Media Geography course in China, with research interest
covering Media Geography and Media Culture.
Introduction
Rethinking the Entangling Force of
Connective Media
Paul C. Adams and André Jansson

Introduction
Digital connectivity platforms are designed to encourage dependence.
Marketed as convenient solutions to virtually every spatial and temporal
challenge, from purchasing plane tickets to reserving a table at a restaurant,
from keeping in touch with friends to learning about world events, from
monitoring one’s exercise regime to navigating unfamiliar urban environ-
ments, connective media have become ubiquitous, and seemingly indis-
pensable. They take us, as van Dijck (2013) notes, into an era of “platformed
sociality,” where our desires are measured, predicted, and reproduced
through the operation of algorithms. Facilitating the search for information,
entertainment, and social connections, this custom-​tailoring of the media
landscape appears to multiply the apparent usefulness and convenience of
media in general. But its value-​added comes from the ability to measure
and steer, or stream, digital subjects and their engagements (as data) in the
ways that are most profitable (e.g., Pigni et al., 2016; Cheney-​Lippold, 2017;
Karppi, 2018; Bernard, 2019; Goriunova, 2019). Thus, as Couldry (2017)
puts it, our everyday tools are now working upon us, and the media landscape
has become not just customized but deeply entangling.
This digital entanglement takes communication into new territory. It
prompts a (re)turn to questions of disconnection as a right (Hesselberth,
2017), as a way of shaping experience, as a statement, as a reaction to con-
frontation or overload, as a response to changes in one’s life, or even as an op-
tional event after one’s death. In response to the digital connectivity regime,
trends in society prescribe or assist in various forms of media abstention.

Paul C. Adams and André Jansson, Introduction In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams,
Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0001
2 Introduction

Self-​help books have appeared with titles like Digital Minimalism, How to
Break Up with Your Phone; and Slow Media, addressing those who hope to
reclaim their independence from digital media or rebuild a more “mindful”
lifestyle (Newport, 2019; Price, 2018; Rauch, 2018). Organized retreats are
proliferating, with custom-​tailored forms of “digital detox tourism” for those
who seek to push back the forces of connection and carve out a space for un-
mediated existence (e.g., Fish, 2017; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). While people’s
efforts to disentangle themselves from digital ties may be psychologically,
economically, or spiritually motivated, they all converge around the desire
to lead a more autonomous life, anchoring oneself, one’s awareness, and one’s
actions in the here and now.
In this context, there is a need for geographers to reflect on the dia-
lectics of digital connection and disconnection. They could consider
digital disconnection to be a form of resistance to social phenomena that
geographers have investigated, such as “digital geographies” (Ash et al.,
2018), “geosurveillance” (Crampton, 2007; Swanlund & Schuurman, 2016,
2019), and “data doubles” (Haggerty & Ericson, 2000; Amoore, 2011), as
well as concepts from outside of geography such as mediatized “spatial
selves” (Schwartz & Hallegoua, 2015). However, although geographers
have analyzed “digital divides” that characterize involuntary disconnec-
tion from digital media (e.g., Warf, 2001), and have considered ways in
which daily life is “reterritorialized” by digital media (Wilson, 2018: 12),
little work has been done to understand where people deliberately discon-
nect from digital media and how practices of digital disconnection carve
out their own sorts of places.
Questions about how and why people disconnect have been discussed to
a greater degree within media studies, as has the question of whether “dis-
connection” is even possible; this work has been driven largely by concern
over the rise of social media and “smart” devices (e.g., Light & Cassidy, 2014;
Karppi, 2018; Jorge, 2019; Bucher, 2020). Media scholars have interpreted
voluntary digital disconnection as a recent expression of a recurring trend
toward media resistance or rejection (e.g., Syvertsen, 2017; Kaun & Treré,
2018; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019), and have depicted disconnection, broken-
ness, and failure as inextricable aspects of connectivity (e.g., Paasonen,
2015; Sundén, 2018). This has taken media theory beyond simplified dual-
istic notions of connection/​disconnection to a broader existential terrain
(Lagerkvist, 2017, 2018; Karppi, 2018; Kuntsman & Miyake, 2019). However,
 Introduction 3

this work is still lacking in subtlety and depth when considering the spatial,
environmental, or geographical implications of disconnection strategies.
Disconnection is a research topic that will, we believe, define social sci-
ence in the 2020s, the way networking has in the 2000s and 2010s. Therefore,
this edited volume is designed as an inherently interdisciplinary venture. It
examines both wanted and unwanted forms of disconnection, with atten-
tion to the ways in which places and spaces are increasingly structured by
different degrees and types of connectivity, as well as to peculiar ways of
facilitating disconnection. The project ultimately rethinks how boundaries
of place respond to digital flows and how they are (re)drawn in relation to
digitalized environments. We have thus solicited chapter submissions con-
sisting of original research that addresses various aspects of what we would
call the geographies of digital disconnection and relates disconnection to the
wider challenges of society today. Should we, for example, think of being dis-
connected as exclusion (something bad) or seclusion (something potentially
good), or a mix of both? Digital divides evolve quickly and involve many
unexamined variations in access to technology, social norms, and practical
knowledge, but what are these variations and how do they work? Both vol-
untary and involuntary disconnection can result when people reassert place
boundaries to exclude unwanted chatter or seclude themselves from unruly
technologies. What are these practices, where are they enacted, and why?
How do such practices, and cultural constructions of them, reveal different
social and cultural positions as well as the intersectionality between these
positions?
An important theme that binds together the chapters of the book is that
“voluntary” and “involuntary” aspects of disconnection need to be con-
sidered in tandem. They are interrelated aspects of the uneven diffusion and
socially entangled geographies of communication technology. This, in turn,
underscores the premise that digital connection/​disconnection is an am-
biguous and socially contested terrain where one side may entail, precon-
dition and/​or pre-​mediate the other. As Sundén states in her contribution
to this volume (p. 277), “disconnection is something that lives within every
connection [ . . . ] networks and connections are bound to fail, reception can
be patchy, devices might break or glitch, run out of power, or be left behind.”
The flipside to Sundén’s argument that connection entails disconnection has
been raised in recent literature on voluntary disconnection. Fish (2017), for
example, describes the function of digital detox camps merely as a way of
4 Introduction

lubricating the machinery of digital capitalism. Similarly, Jorge (2019: 1)

concludes in her study of how people motivate their disconnection from
Instagram that such actions often take the shape of temporary interruptions,
and “are thus not transformative but restorative of the informational capit-
alism social media are part of.” As such, people’s attempts to disconnect or
create alternative networks seem futile in a society where connectivity indus-
tries such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon colonize our entire lives down
to our most mundane and intimate undertakings (see, e.g., Cheney-​Lippold,
2017; Karppi, 2018; Andrejevic, 2019; Couldry & Mejias, 2019). Even the
photos taken of oneself and loved ones while disconnecting are shared with
Facebook “friends” as soon as connectivity is reestablished.
In this opening chapter, we provide a map of this complex terrain. Bringing
together key arguments from the contributing chapters, we weave an argu-
ment that also represents an agenda for research into the geographies of
digital disconnection. Accordingly, the following discussions match the tri-
adic structure of the book. We begin with the increasingly pressing questions
of ethics and justice, or what we with Massey (1991) call power geometries,
framing digital (dis)connection today (Part I). We then explore existential is-
sues stemming from digitally entangled lives, where disconnection seems an
increasingly futile undertaking even in “analog” settings or in one’s afterlife
(Part II). Third, we reflect on how ambiguities of (dis)connection are accen-
tuated and exposed in time-​spaces of social disruption—​as evidenced not
least during the COVID-​19 pandemic (Part III).
These discussions lead up to a concluding section, in which we pro-
pose disentangling as a complementary term to disconnection, context-
ualizing issues of (dis)connection from a social and spatial perspective.
Disentangling implies something more than just disconnection, since the
latter is often furtive, escapist, or periodic. Disentangling is about the re-
assertion of resilient boundaries between the individual life and larger
political, economic, cultural, and technological systems. While deliberate
disconnection sometimes articulates a “longing for place,” and ambitious
measures taken to satisfy this longing, such ambitions also escalate our
awareness of, and frustrations with, how deeply our existences today are
entangled with digital media. Such entanglements can best be understood
as technologically distributed (and automated) agency permeating our
entire lives. Even as disconnecting subjects who intend to reconnect to
something non-​digital (for example real place, nature, others, or, simply
 Introduction 5

life), we bring our entanglements with us regardless of what kind of place

we retreat into.

Power Geometries of Connectivity

Generally, disconnection evokes negative connotations. To be disconnected
means that you are cut off from something, no longer capable of staying in
touch with your loved ones or accessing your information sources. This, in
turn, points to a subordinated position of some kind: marginalization, lack
of infrastructure, communication failure. Yet, we increasingly encounter
discourses that celebrate digital disconnection as a form of empowerment.
To actively disconnect is to regain control over one’s life: resisting the sur-
veillance and exploitative power of connective media, avoiding information
stress and reconnecting with one’s inner self and the relations one values the
most. Digital connectivity has become an issue that cuts both ways in regard
to struggles for justice and debates about ethics. Who should have the right
to which types of connection? Should there also be a right to disconnect?
What kinds of judgments are involved in our decisions to connect or discon-
nect under different circumstances, and what does this say about the place of
the “disconnected” in segments of society?
We can with Doreen Massey (1991) say that connectivity—​in itself har-
boring the balance between connection and disconnection—​constitutes
an increasingly important, and complex, type of power geometry in society.
Massey coined the term to capture how different groups and individuals are
unequally positioned in relation to various resources of mobility and con-
nectivity and how such positionalities (re)produce social power relations at
large. What is interesting to see, then, is that social power and status can no
longer be unequivocally associated with the possession of what Elliot and
Urry (2010) call network capital (including, for example, communication de-
vices, means and documents of travel, and access to safe and secure meeting
places). On top of power geometries stemming from unequal infrastructural
resources, there are increasingly fine-​grained distinctions emerging, espe-
cially among those who already have an abundance of such resources and
take their network capital more or less for granted. Such distinctions con-
cern how connectivity is handled, including where and when we ought to dis-
connect. The individual capacity to manage connectivity in day-​to-​day life,
6 Introduction

and the power associated with this capacity, can be likened with Kaufmann’s
(2002) idea of motility: the ability to take control over one’s mobility, in-
cluding the right and privilege to stay put.
In the first part of the book, we have gathered four chapters that illu-
minate different aspects of these changing power geometries of connect-
ivity. In Chapter 1, David Swanlund discusses the ubiquity of commercial
geosurveillance in everyday life, asking whether there is actually any way of
resisting such monitoring processes without disconnecting from digital plat-
forms altogether. Geosurveillance refers to the automated collation of spatial
data by and through location-​based services, typically linked to social media,
which can be seen as a threat to individual privacy. Here, Swanlund stresses
the need to move beyond simplified, binary oppositions between privacy vs.
surveillance and connection vs. disconnection. He thus singles out minimiza-
tion as well as reconnection as available tactics against the industry’s “hunger
for data.” Minimization is a matter of acknowledging the small steps involved
in disconnection that eventually lead to enlarged breathing space: “closing
extraneous online accounts, using cash when making purchases, not pro-
viding a zip code or rewards card at the grocery store, opting out of soft-
ware analytics, and denying unnecessary permissions to smartphone apps”
(p. 33). Reconnection, in turn, entails “forging, strengthening, and altering
connections to favor privacy over geosurveillance” (p. 34) through, for ex-
ample, appropriating alternative apps and software that obfuscate dominant
forms data collection and collation. In all, while Swanlund’s mapping of the
everyday terrain of geosurveillance presents some hope to those concerned
with human autonomy it also underlines the new power differentials linked
to connectivity skills and reflexivity.
In the following chapter (Chapter 2), Mimi Sheller provides evidence of
similar everyday negotiations, but from a starkly different context. From
2010 to 2013, Sheller studied the implementation of digital infrastructure in
post-​earthquake recovery processes in Haiti. Even under such conditions,
where new geomedia platforms like OpenStreetMap were implemented by
international organizations to sustain humanitarian aid projects, the conse-
quences of (re-​)connectivity were ambiguous. While the distribution of con-
nectivity and other elements of network capital were uneven from the start,
especially since local infrastructures had been demolished, the implemen-
tation of new platforms further exposed the uneven nature of global power
geometries. Sheller shows that many people “on the ground” were bypassed
 Introduction 7

by new infrastructure and had to put considerable labor into “patching” to-
gether mended infrastructure. Sometimes, they also chose to “strategically
disconnect” from new infrastructure “to counter the power of those with
high network capital” (p. 43). Disconnection thus unfolded both as an in-
herent part of infrastructural connectivity efforts and through everyday
tactical measures between differently positioned groups. This shows how
(partial) disconnection may sometimes constitute an asset, a form of agency,
even among socially disadvantaged groups—​which is, of course, not to say
that disconnection in general, and in the long run, would be a sustainable
path to justice and equality.
The next two chapters delve into the current significance of digital dis-
connection as a form of social privilege, or, cultural capital (Bourdieu,
1979,1984). In Chapter 3, Fast, Lindell, and Jansson provide a survey analysis
of where different social groups prefer to disconnect from digital media tech-
nology. In Chapter 4, Neriko Musha Doerr brings together three qualitative
studies of how digital connectivity was managed under alternative student
trips to foreign locations and natural environments. The backdrop to both
chapters is the expanding disconnection discourse presenting media discip-
line and abstention as pathways to well-​being, autonomy, and stronger at-
tachment to the “here and now.”
Along these lines, Fast and colleagues demonstrate that experiences of
“digital unease”—​including information stress, “fear of missing out,” and
feelings of digital over-​use—​are associated with cultural capital and that
individual routines for managing connectivity are more common among
people in more privileged social positions, and that as a consequence, these
groups are more inclined than others to disconnect at certain places, such as
in the bedroom, at restaurants, while on vacation or visiting friends, and in
nature. Disconnection practices thus manifest ethical standards that tend to
distinguish more “cultured” groups from “others.” Doerr takes these discus-
sions further. Based on her analyses of how students handled and conversed
about connective media while on study abroad trips and alternative spring
break trips to educational farms and wilderness camps, Doerr concludes that
disconnection in these settings was invoked as a dominant social norm. It
was taken as a prerequisite for gaining the “authentic” experience of local
lives and the beauty of nature. Participants who did not adhere to this spatial
coding were seen as inferior or suspect. Doerr argues that the disconnection
discourse fosters a double othering effect where those who fail to recognize
8 Introduction

the constructed value of selective disconnection (related to the quest for “au-
thentic” experiences), as well as people who are involuntarily disconnected,
are looked down upon.
This group of chapters highlights the growing levels of reflexivity in-
volved in the day-​to-​day management of connectivity, whether we speak of
“patching” of fragmented connections or distinctive acts of selective media
withdrawal. Ultimately, these practices are political in nature. They make
up and manifest the power geometries and spatial codes we live by, that is,
how we interpret and judge the social and material landscape. Our ability to
manage connectivity (connection vs. disconnection) has an impact on our
sense of belonging and our feelings about different places. It also affects how
others perceive us at different times and places. As such, power geometries of
connectivity concern more than network capital and digital access. They con-
cern the deeper existential bonds we have to place and how these bonds are
negotiated. While politicians and other power fractions have few incentives
to plead for disconnection or infrastructural restrictions—​removing things
like fiber expansion and 5G development from the agenda would seem very
odd indeed—​the more digitally entangled we are the more difficult it gets to
establish that “breathing space” of privacy that Swanlund talks about, and
therefore the more exclusive and privileged such “disconnection retreats”
will be. Today, even our innermost lived spaces are technologized and, as
such, exposed to ideological, commercial, and other entangling forces.

(Dis)connected Lives
The switch from connection to disconnection has been evident throughout
history, for example in sleep, in the abandonment of human settlements, and
in death. Social connections are broken when one crawls off to bed, leaves
the scene, or dies. Our attempts to give meaning to disconnection are there-
fore not only key among things that make us human, but they are what could
be called existential forms of disconnection—​aspects of the human condi-
tion. In the digital era, these existential turning points imply new ways of
connecting, as well; death is not what it used to be, nor is sleep, nor is the act
of departing and leaving behind what one has built. Digital entanglement
makes each of these separations into something equivocal, enigmatic, and
persistently entangled.
 Introduction 9

To start with death (perhaps as a bit of a provocation), funeral customs

are ancient and socially sanctioned healing processes. When death severs the
social fabric, the living do not simply endure disconnection but follow cus-
toms to heal the wound, and it is a wound that seldom heals quickly or easily.
Death has always led to a disconcerting alternation between attempted re-
connection (imagining what someone would say) and repeated encounters
with the intransigent fact of disconnection (remembering that they can no
longer speak), which in turn motivate not just funeral rituals but peculiar
forms of communication. For example, 19th-​century mourners dressed up
their dead and posed with them in photos creating visual evidence of an en-
during social connection, in a way that now strikes us as macabre (Bell, 2016).
Older yet is the gesture of reconnecting with the dead by visiting a gravesite
or monument and leaving flowers or other offerings as a “gift of presence”
to those who are absent (Richardson, 2001), performing the act of giving as
proof of an unbroken connection, though the senses (normally) show no
evidence of a reply. The fact that we now live in and through data streams
intersects with such communication efforts and transforms them. The dead
are not merely preserved as visual facsimiles or embedded in an economy of
gift-​giving, but rather they are extended and simulated in digital form, kept
alive as digital agents (Lagerkvist, 2017: 103–​104). Insofar as people develop
online personas during life, these “second selves” (Turkle, 2005) are easily
repurposed as components of a postmortem presence. As Fordyce, Nansen,
Arnold, Kohn, and Gibbs demonstrate in this volume (Chapter 5), digital
media and computers afford several distinct methods of doing this: pre-​
written messages sent at intervals after one’s death, surrogates who maintain
another person’s online presence, algorithms that post a remixed version of
the dead person’s responses, and artificial intelligences that seem to breathe
life back into the dead person. These interventions all seem to solve the exist-
ential challenge of death, but a question arises whether such digital afterlives
(re)connect lives, or rob death of some of its existential meaning.
Sleep is a temporary disconnection that mirrors the permanent discon-
nection of death. If the anxieties that keep us up at night can potentially
be solved in a low-​tech way (for example through music, movement, and
meditation), these solutions appear slow and uncertain in comparison to
high-​tech alternatives: hardware to buy and software to install. Lying in bed,
one’s mind hesitates to let go; technology seems to offer a solution. Nansen,
Mannell, and O’Neill explore this new digital landscape in Chapter 6. There
10 Introduction

are technologies marketed as tools to help one go to sleep, stay asleep, sleep
soundly, benefit from sleep, and wake “naturally.” These technologies fine-​
tune external aspects of the sleeper’s environment to facilitate a benefi-
cial form of disconnection, including sound, light, and temperature, while
“paying attention” to the sleeper’s metabolic processes. The sleeper becomes
less of a disconnected body-​mind and more of a body-​mind “upgraded” to a
special kind of connection within a sleep-​inducing “architecture” that never
sleeps or goes dormant.
We can take the idea of architecture more literally by returning again to
the theme of disconnection. Recalling that “old” manifestations of discon-
nection include abandoned structures, derelict places, and ruins, it is unex-
pectedly productive to inquire into the future of ruins. Without continued
maintenance, human constructions have historically been subject to di-
verse and fascinating processes of deterioration (Weisman, 2007). The tum-
bled columns and gaping foundations that remain on the landscape lulled
poets into sleepy meditation or haunted them as memento mori (compare
Robert Browning’s poem “Love among the Ruins” to Percy Shelley’s poem
“Ozymandias”). More adventurous souls have trespassed on such deserted
places as a frontier of exploration (Edensor, 2005). But what happens when
the things we build no longer crumble, collapse, rust, or decay? As Garcia
and Miller show in their contribution to this volume (Chapter 7), virtual
places and spaces that have been left behind can often still be accessed, and
every virtual brick is still in place. No digital rats run in the alleys and no
digital termites chew through the walls. Digital ruins send a tricky message
about disconnection which lacks the traces of time’s passage that inspired
poets. The fact that an abandoned digital place remains just as it was, despite
changes in the outside world, makes it “an uncanny landscape haunted by the
presence of past intents” (Garcia & Miller, this volume: p. 171).
Death, sleep, and ruins are similar in that they remind us of our insig-
nificance, our frailty, our fleeting existence, our limitations, and our vulner-
ability. Technology seems to offer a cure for the malaise produced by such
things, but a more accessible antidote resides in daily life. Immersion in daily
life must certainly offer a solution to the existential puzzle of disconnection,
all the more so if daily life is memorialized in photos, mementos, journals,
and scrapbooks. In response to this impulse, many Chinese have taken up
the leisure-​time pursuit called shouzhang, transforming daily life into a cur-
ated artifact, archiving the self on decorative paper, embellished by slow
 Introduction 11

media like handwriting, still photography, and pasted ribbons. However, as

Yan Yuan discusses in Chapter 8, digital media permeate this “slow media”
culture. Aficionados turn to digital media for the purpose of sharing experi-
ences, learning about slow media techniques, purchasing slow media sup-
plies, and staying in touch with other practitioners. Once again, connection
can be found haunting disconnection, like unseen ghosts and rats moving
through the ruins of our digital lives.
If our online lives prevent us from fully detaching, and our existential en-
counters with death, sleep, and ruins, all take on qualities of attachment and
connection rather than disconnection, then digital practices seem paradox-
ically to offer antidotes to digitalization. But whichever way we go to bow
out, lie down, or wander off the scene, our digital replicas remain present,
animated by digital data flows.

Rethinking Disconnection in a Disrupted World

All of this can prompt us to turn inward in an effort to disentangle the mind
through practices of awareness, centering, and focusing that are some-
times referred to as “mindfulness.” While the term recalls meditation, the
movement is also reminiscent of the temperance movements of the past
century. Just as the prohibitionists linked alcoholism to poverty, crime, im-
morality and the breakdown of civilization, the “digital detox” movement
views digital addiction as a force undermining physical and psychological
health, disrupting social relations, and disconnecting humans from nature.
In Chapter 9, Enli and Syvertsen analyze the discourse behind this phenom-
enon. In the promotional literature for digital detox, one repeatedly encoun-
ters a longing for an antidote to the noisy, hyperactive, addictive world of
digital sensation-​seeking, sensationalism, and sensuality. In Chapter 10,
Pepita Hesselberth offers an insider’s view of detox retreats. A 21st-​century
inversion of the mid-​20th century call to “turn on [and] drop out” (Stone,
2019), these structured gatherings help one to turn off and drop in. To achieve
“reconnection of body, mind and soul” (Hesselberth, this volume: p. 254),
one not only cuts off digital communications but also reestablishes famil-
iarity with stillness through meditation, yoga, keeping silent, chanting, and
other techniques for centering the mind. If constant connection is like a
drug, then it is not surprising that people recognize its drawbacks cannot be
12 Introduction

solved by depending on additional devices and apps. Digital detox retreats

are not without their own paradoxes, however. For example, they impose
discipline on people as a way to help them regain autonomy.
The tension between desire and autonomy is indicated by digital detox ef-
forts, but COVID-​19 brings the same theme into sharper focus. For example,
when it comes to dating and “hooking up,” gratification can of course be as
fast as swiping left or right to accept or reject a partner on a dating app, but in
the midst of an epidemic digital media can also facilitate the indefinite post-
ponement of gratification. In this connection, Jenny Sundén (Chapter 11)
turns our attention to the “slower erotic stir of the quarantine,” (p. 283)
demonstrating that digital interaction need not be faster than face-​to-​face
interaction. Connection can be a way to turn inward, forestalling physical
intimacy with another, discovering ways to sustain the distance between
bodies, ways to extend desire in both space and time. Here human connec-
tion is haunted by disconnection, in an inverse of the situations listed above
where disconnection was haunted by connection.
These chapters all emerge at a difficult time when the authors have been
struggling to balance the demands of research and teaching from homes that
have become temporary offices, sharing workspaces with multiple family
members, repurposing bedrooms as temporary schoolrooms for our chil-
dren. As Adams, Behrens, Hoelscher, Lavrenova, Robinson, and Yuan dis-
cuss in the final chapter of this book (Chapter 12), we have had to redesign
courses for “distance learning” and forgo eating at restaurants while making
do with takeout food eaten in front of the TV. Pedagogical routines have
been redesigned around Zoom and other teleconferencing technologies, the
same all-​purpose apps that allow us to visit with elderly relatives, friends, and
extended family, as well as colleagues and students. Education may be per-
manently changed by this crash course in distance learning and networked
collaboration. It reworks connection to fit a disconnected world, but reveals
various shortcomings of “distance learning.”
Many of the chapters refer explicitly or implicitly to this turn of events
with its daily calls to do this or that via some online system or service, the de-
lays and glitches involved in taking so much of life online, and the recurring
feeling of being under house arrest. In the midst of this profound reorgan-
ization of spatial routines and communication routines, in effect a reorgan-
ization of the geography of daily life, a bit of self-​examination may bring to
light insights that otherwise fall by the wayside. How are we re-​establishing
 Introduction 13

distance in a world where everything has come crashing into our living
space? How are we playing with intimacy around the edges of social dis-
tancing? How are we managing to access the goods and services we used to
reach with a walk or a drive? What can we do to rewire our brains to suit the
rhythms and flows of digital life? Why is this reworking of connection and
disconnection having such a profound impact on sense of self, and on pro-
fessional and personal identity?

Disentangling
Let us go back to where we started and consider the question of technological
dependence. How did our entire lives get entangled with digital platforms
and data streams? Since we embarked on this book project, in 2019, digit-
alization has accelerated and reached a level we could not imagine when we
started. We all know the reason. The COVID-​19 pandemic and its conse-
quences constitute (among other, more devastating things) a gigantic con-
nectivity experiment. During this crisis, fiber cables, networked devices, and
all kinds of communications software have enabled most of us to maintain
some of the capacities that would otherwise have been lost. Meeting others
online instead of around the dinner table or in the park or at the shopping
mall may not be all that exciting. Still, such restrained, mediated meetings re-
mind us of what it is to be human. As Hannah Arendt (1958/​1998) suggested,
a life without social action “has ceased to be a human life” (p. 176). While
we (at least theoretically) might manage to pursue our lives without labor
and work activities (for example, through exploiting the productive efforts
of others), without the ability to act, that is, to appear and disclose ourselves
to others, our lives would be “literally dead to the world” (p. 176). Under the
pressures of social disruption, connective media are now celebrated as the
saviors of human affairs.
We can also discern the point where we must critically assess the costs of
our new lifesaving technologies. As Nick Couldry (2017: 69) argues in a dis-
cussion on the conditions of mediation in the digital world, “a key source of
unease, whether or not it emerges in explicit normative reflection, is the sense
that digital tools are necessarily entangled in distant processes, powerful pro-
cesses that we cannot unpick or easily challenge.” What has been achieved
by intensified connectivity, at an unprecedented speed due to the crisis, are
14 Introduction

precisely that: further entanglements with digital technology and the com-
mercial interests operating in the background. These interests have had a lot
to gain from the crisis. In the midst of economic turmoil, tech companies
like Zoom, Netflix, Spotify, and the GAFAM quintet (Google/​Alphabet,
Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) have skyrocketed on the American
stock market. Meanwhile, the real estate market (until very recently a suc-
cess story) is trembling due the risk that many people may not return to
their offices (at least not permanently) as companies start learning how to
make ends meet without providing fixed workplaces to their employees. The
situation is even more critical for businesses dealing in mobility and hospi-
tality services now that meetings and other social events are predominantly
held online. Some hotel chains, such as Scandic (in the Nordic context), are
shifting parts of their business to offering flexible (and sufficiently spacious)
coworking spaces. A similar sign of accelerating digitalization, perhaps even
a tipping point, was when the Swedish banking group Handelsbanken, the
last of the national banks to actively promote local bank offices as an essential
part of their business model, in September 2020 declared that they will close
down 180 of their 380 offices. The public demand is in decline, which may
also have something to do with the fact that a great share of those customers
requesting face-​to-​face services, especially older people, have been in home
quarantine during most of the year and thus more or less forced to adopt
digital banking solutions.
While these transitions signify an amazing digital leap and a gigantic
learning process, especially in societies that were already deeply digitalized
and had the right infrastructures in place before the pandemic, the human
costs of enforced digital connectivity will gradually become evident. They
will most likely penetrate deeper into our lives than the exploitative tenden-
cies of “data colonialism” (see Couldry & Mejias, 2019). They will pertain
to the fact that fewer and fewer time-​spaces of our lives provide a retreat
from digital connectivity, and thus coercive entanglements. It is true, of
course, that the unique qualities of face-​to-​face interaction are deeply de-
sired, even essential to the human condition, and will pull people together
again after the crisis. Likewise, digital affordances will not satisfy the thirst
for multisensory place experiences and corporeal journeys. But we must
also consider the combined and enduring effects of new digital routines, al-
tered organizational procedures, and large investments in new technology
and know-​how. A great deal of our newly-​gained digital habits are here to
 Introduction 15

stay. Even a partial return to the “pre-​Corona” state of affairs would signify
a form of “partial disconnection” and, as such, oppose the dominant thrust
of the connectivity regime. The pandemic has made it starkly clear that in a
digitalized society there cannot exist any “pure” state of disconnection; such
a thing is no longer attainable because our new media are the human condi-
tion, as much as they disrupt, corrupt, and contaminate that very condition.
Sociality has been platformed (van Dijck, 2013).
The chapters of this book all testify, in various ways, to this enigmatic na-
ture of digital connectivity; the fact that there is no way of rewinding the
tape. Basically, as Bucher (2020) argues, this has nothing to do with the
digital per se. Connectivity—​understood as the socially shaped dialectic of
connection and disconnection—​is an inherent aspect of the human condi-
tion and people have throughout history invented increasingly sophisticated
means for coordinating social (inter)actions across time and space (see, e.g.,
Peters, 2015). Just like connection has always been haunted by its other—​that
is, disconnection, as the threat of failure, breakdown or separation—​even the
theoretical possibility of disconnection is predicated upon the coexistence
of connection. Still, what sets digital connectivity—​and the logics of con-
nective media (van Dijck, 2013)—​apart from earlier forms of mediated con-
nectivity is precisely what we have hinted at earlier: its entangling force. No
previous media regime has even been close to embracing as wide a range of
everyday activities as our current regime of digital connectivity platforms,
and no previous technology has had the same propensity to link human
existences, including our search for recognition, comfort, and orientation,
to abstract systems of monitoring and value extraction (Andrejevic, 2007;
Zuboff, 2019). Thus, the entangling force of digital connectivity, as we know
it, arises from its social, economic, and political scope: its reach, as well as its
existential depth.
The reason to why we can no longer disconnect from digital media, then,
is that we would first have to disentangle from society itself. Or, formulated
differently; even if we managed to disconnect on the technological level we
would still be entangled in the social, economic, political, cultural, organ-
izational, and bureaucratic structures that generate digital dependence, and
thus feel the pressure, or develop what may feel like autonomous desires, to
reconnect. Digital technologies are intertwined with the things we love the
most and the things we need in order to keep up a decent human life, in-
cluding the gathering of information about the world (Adams, 2020) and
16 Introduction

much of our social life. This is how our interests and behaviors are cur-
rently sedimented, normalized as part of the social fabric and as a collective
structure. While disconnection at the most mundane level may be thought
of as something simple, such as the mechanical act of “unplugging” or
“switching off,” disentangling will always be an ethical and political matter.
Disentangling is precisely that realm of normative reflection that Couldry
(2017) hints at in the earlier citation. It is a way of rethinking, or unthinking,
the structures of our digital world, whether channeled through connective
or disconnective practices, whether obeying a thirst for human territoriality,
sensory enrichment, or open space. As such, disentangling harbors the vi-
sions and hopes that we all, as citizens, consumers, and fellow human beings,
invest in our life trajectories. Disentangling is never complete; it is always a
work in progress.
The chapters of this book deal as much with this broader process of dis-
entangling as with the narrower issue of disconnection. They open up a
panoramic view of the complex social entanglements that make digital dis-
connection such an evocative issue in contemporary social scientific thought
and public debate. They are engaged, one might say, in rethinking and re-
working the entangling forces of connective media.

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 PART I
POWER GEOMETRIES
OF CONNECTIVITY
1
Disconnection and Reconnection
as Resistance to Geosurveillance
David Swanlund

Introduction
While in recent decades the world has become ever more connected, so
too has it become more surveilled. Indeed, the primary cost of connection,
whether it be through Facebook, YouTube, or even local news websites, has
been our privacy. The Web is rife with trackers that follow our every click
and our phones are outfitted with an assortment of sensors that watch our
every move. GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth are each used to track what stores
we go to and what aisles we shop in, sometimes down to the centimeter
(Sawers, 2019). And as we become connected to the Web, so too does our
data become connected with other data; when disparate datasets about us are
linked together, new information is produced that is often more powerful,
revealing, and intrusive than the sum of their parts (Gutmann et al., 2007).
In this sense, our data doubles are snowballing into not just vague caricatures
of ourselves, but detailed photographs.
For these reasons, there has been a growing level of skepticism toward
such intrusive technologies and practices. Pew Research recently found
that four out of five American adults felt they lacked control over their data
from corporations, and that the benefits of handing over their data were out-
weighed by the risks to their personal privacy (Auxier et al., 2019). Similar
results were found with regard to data collection by governments (Auxier
et al., 2019). Another recent survey found that 46% of respondents listed
privacy as one of their top reasons for quitting Facebook (Newton, 2020),
which over 15 million users did between 2017 and 2019 (Edison Research,
2019). Simultaneously, topics are trending that push back against constant
connection, as ideas like “data detoxes” and “the dumb-​phone” movement

David Swanlund, Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance to Geosurveillance In: Disentangling.

Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0002
24 Power Geometrics of Connectivity

gain popularity, both listing privacy among the chief benefits (Davis, 2018;
Tactical Tech, n.d.). After decades marked by rapid connection, it seems
there is a movement toward disconnection.
Of course, such a movement warrants many questions. First, what makes
privacy so valuable that we feel compelled to disconnect? With technology
increasingly mediating everyday life, from online banking to dating apps,
disconnecting from the technologies that we have come to rely on can seem
costly. For instance, leaving Facebook can feel like not just disconnecting
from the platform, but losing touch with old friends and acquaintances.
Moreover, for political activists, leaving Facebook can mean being cut
off from a wide variety of organizing efforts (even those aimed against
Facebook), as the platform has (ironically) become a hub for activism
(O’Donovan, 2018; Sholes, 2018). Yet, once again the platform recently lost
15 million users (Edison Research, 2019), with privacy being listed as one
of the top reasons to abandon the platform (Newton, 2020). We clearly and
deeply value privacy, but why?
Second, how viable is disconnection for maintaining privacy? Given the
vast array of technical mechanisms that afford geosurveillance (the col-
lection of personal data linked to people’s locations, as will be discussed)
and the myriad of actors vying for every ounce of our data, even partial
disconnection is extremely difficult (Swanlund & Schuurman, 2016).
Indeed, some degree of technical sophistication is required to simply iden-
tify how data is being generated about us before one can start to consider
how to thwart it. As a result, disconnection is no simple task, and requires
an intimate understanding of the technologies from which we want to
disconnect.
Last, is it possible to meaningfully disconnect from geosurveillance and
is this the right solution? Given the difficulty of fully shielding oneself from
surveillance, disconnecting in favor of privacy can feel like a pointless exer-
cise. And with every day increasingly demanding that we engage with digital
systems that put our privacy at risk, not only can disconnection seem fu-
tile, but actively counterproductive to advancing in life. How then can we
meaningfully resist geosurveillance, especially when disconnection is not an
option?
This chapter explores each of these issues. It begins by first conceptu-
alizing privacy, a term often used but rarely defined, to better under-
stand why we might desire privacy. It then overviews how geosurveillance
 Disconnection and Reconnection 25

operates and in doing so emphasizes the difficulty of disconnection.

Finally, it discusses how disconnection and reconnection can be used to
resist geosurveillance.

Why Is Privacy Worth Disconnection?

Privacy is a concept that is increasingly cited in public debates over tech-
nology and yet, somewhat paradoxically, is also becoming more difficult to
actually understand. While it is now commonly assumed to relate to some
sort of control over one’s information, this is a rather recent development.
In fact, privacy as a concept has evolved significantly over the last 130 years,
often spurred by technological and social change, such as the rise of tabloids,
telephones, and computers (Curry, 1997). As a result, there are numerous
different ways we can understand, or conceptualize, privacy. This section
explores how privacy can be conceptualized and in doing so attempts to
grapple with the questions of what is privacy really, and what makes it worth
disconnection?

The Origins of Privacy

Privacy as a legal right is relatively young as it was first introduced in

an article written by Warren and Brandeis (1890) at the end of the 19th
century. In this first formulation, privacy was understood as a right to be
let alone, or an opportunity to retreat from a world of tabloid newspapers
and photographs that were “overstepping in every direction the obvious
bounds of propriety and decency” (Warren & Brandeis, 1890: 196). In a
sense, this too was a right to disconnect from the technologies and media
of the time, and as these technologies developed so too did our under-
standing of privacy. The core challenge was (and still is) to differentiate
the aspects of our lives that deserve privacy versus those that do not. For
instance, as telephones made their way into American homes, a debate
began over whether the telephone line, which crossed the threshold of
the private home, should also be considered private and therefore be pro-
tected from wiretapping. The initial US Supreme Court ruling was that
telephone lines extending outside the home were not private, but this
26 Power Geometrics of Connectivity

decision was overturned in the 1960s as telephones continued to per-

meate everyday life (Solove, 2002).
Interestingly, it was the right to be let alone that underpinned the court’s
decision to protect phone calls from wiretaps. But as Solove (2002) remarks,
the right to be let alone “merely describes an attribute of privacy,” and “does
not inform us about the matters in which we should be let alone” (p. 1101).
It is due to this limitation that scholars from a range of disciplines have since
crafted many different conceptualizations of privacy meant to help us under-
stand whether an issue is actually about privacy (versus some other right)
and, if so, to what extent we should balance privacy against other priorities
(e.g., security). Solove (2002) offers a comprehensive review of many of these
conceptualizations, but here we will briefly explore three that are particu-
larly powerful for understanding modern privacy: contextual integrity, net-
worked privacy, and privacy as breathing room (Cohen, 2013; Marwick &
boyd, 2014; Nissenbaum, 2004).

Contextual Integrity

Contextual integrity is a popular conceptualization of privacy that cen-

ters on norms of information flow, which Nissenbaum (2004) argues
permeate social life. These include norms of appropriateness and norms
of distribution. Norms of appropriateness “dictate what information
about persons is appropriate, or fitting, to reveal in a particular context”
(Nissenbaum, 2004: 138). These concern the content of what is shared.
Norms of distribution, on the other hand, concern who that content is
shared with and whether this respects the norms of a given social con-
text. Privacy as contextual integrity, therefore, “is maintained when both
types of norms are upheld, and it is violated when either of the norms is
violated” (p. 138). An example of a norm of appropriateness being vio-
lated (and therefore privacy being violated) may include a college pro-
fessor asking about a student’s dating life, whereas a norm of distribution
being violated may include that professor sharing a student’s grades with
other students.
The advantage of contextual integrity is that it has significant explana-
tory power. For instance, Nissenbaum (2004) notes that when public re-
cords are moved online, privacy concerns often arise. Yet, expecting privacy
 Disconnection and Reconnection 27

in already-​public records is often difficult to justify. Contextual integrity

would suggest that the reason we feel concerned for privacy is because long-​
standing norms of distribution are being disrupted; suddenly information
about us is globally connected and can be made accessible to parties that
have no such need for those records. The main drawback of contextual integ-
rity is that norms are not always so easily identified or agreed upon, particu-
larly in online contexts (Marwick & boyd, 2014).

Networked Privacy

Networked privacy is a conceptualization that acknowledges the flu-

idity, contingency, and vulnerability of privacy as it relates to social media
(Marwick & boyd, 2014). It claims that privacy on social media does not rely
on secrecy, but rather on using highly nuanced tactics of informational dis-
closure and trust. As the authors explain, it “requires that people have an
understanding of and influence in shaping the context in which information
is being interpreted” (Marwick & boyd, 2014: 1063). Therefore, networked
privacy is “an ongoing, active practice” that “cannot be entirely maintained
and established by individuals” as it is “determined through a combination
of audience, technical mechanisms, and social norms” (Marwick & boyd,
2014: 1062).
Unlike most other scholars conceptualizing privacy, Marwick and boyd
developed this conceptualization based upon hundreds of hours of inter-
views and ethnographic research into how teenagers understand and
manage their privacy. For instance, the authors describe a participant who
deletes old content regularly in fear of old comments being taken out of
context. Teens also regularly disclose information in a way that ensures
only their close friends would understand the context, a practice the au-
thors call “social steganography” (Marwick & boyd, 2014). What these ex-
amples highlight is that a nuanced understanding of a given social media
platform as well as skill and precision when interacting on it are integral
to maintaining privacy on the network. They also emphasize that privacy
does not necessitate disconnection, but rather highly deliberate and skill-
fully managed connections. Of course, this conceptualization of privacy
is highly specific to social media and fails to account for other elements of
privacy (nor does it attempt to).
28 Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Privacy as Breathing Room

Julie Cohen (2013) offers a particularly compelling conceptualization of

privacy as it relates to disconnection. She argues that privacy theory it-
self has long hamstrung the concept, making it appear as a dated artifact
of history. More specifically, she takes issue with the liberal notion of an
“autonomous self ” that has historically formed a theoretical basis for a
right to privacy, noting that a “self ” cannot be so easily disentangled from
social forces. She also rejects, however, the opposite extreme that the
self is the mere product of social construction. Instead, Cohen accepts
a limited account of both selfhood and social construction and places
privacy at the center between these two seemingly opposing forces.
“Privacy is shorthand for breathing room,” she writes, noting that “in a
world characterized by pervasive social shaping of subjectivity, privacy
fosters (partial) self-​determination. It enables individuals both to main-
tain relational ties and to develop critical perspectives on the world
around them” (p. 1906).
Given the wide array of forces that effect social shaping through careful
modulation, such as targeted advertising from political campaigns, Cohen
argues that privacy provides shelter from these forces that would otherwise
homogenize populations and impede innovation. In other words, “privacy
shelters dynamic, emergent subjectivity from the efforts of commercial and
government actors to render individuals and communities fixed, trans-
parent, and predictable” (Cohen, 2013: 1905). Indeed, privacy is the space
we need to define ourselves free of outside influence, without which society
creeps toward stasis.
Each of these conceptualizations provides a unique view into privacy
and disconnection. Contextual integrity allows us to pinpoint privacy is-
sues that arise from connections that violate norms of information flow.
Networked privacy illustrates not just how our privacy is highly contin-
gent on our various connections, but how we can carefully manage our
privacy through skillful (dis)connection. Finally, privacy as breathing
room offers a powerful explanation of exactly what is at stake when
our privacy is eroded. But how exactly does geosurveillance erode our
privacy, and what are the technologies at play that we need to discon-
nect from?
 Disconnection and Reconnection 29

Disconnecting from Geosurveillance

Wherever we go, it is difficult not to produce a record of that movement.
Whether it be through cellphones, biometrics, credit card transactions, or
video surveillance, we are constantly dropping breadcrumbs as we travel.
Disconnection necessitates a certain degree of understanding of how exactly
these breadcrumbs fall. This is of course a somewhat opaque area, clouded
by proprietary algorithms, complex data flows, and often impenetrable tech-
nical details and legal jargon. It is rather ironic that our ability to understand
our own personal privacy is impeded by corporate claims to privacy over
their algorithms and databases. Nevertheless, we can sketch out a hologram
of geosurveillance that allows us to view its general structure and operation,
even if some of its finer contours are missing.
A sensible entry point to understanding geosurveillance is geolocation, or
in other words, finding where someone (or something) is located. There are
many methods for achieving this that range from being spatially explicit to
implicit. For instance, GPS is an explicit method of geolocation, where spa-
tial data (coordinates) are produced referring directly to where someone is
on the earth’s surface. Credit card transactions, on the other hand, exemplify
a more implicit method of geolocation; they may only contain the name of
the store where you made your purchase, but simple geocoding can instantly
convert that name to coordinates. This differentiation is useful because it il-
lustrates that a large amount of geosurveillance can occur without ever ex-
plicitly tracking anyone with GPS, for example. Instead, large datasets where
location is implicit can be geocoded to produce those explicit coordinates,
including retroactively long after the data was collected. Moreover, the work
of McKenzie, Janowicz, and Seidl (2016) clearly demonstrates the immense
amount of locational insight that can be generated without geocoding what-
soever, often from seemingly innocuous, aspatial data like tweets. In short,
when exploring geosurveillance, we must remain cognizant that location in-
formation can easily lurk in unexpected places.
Of course, there are many geolocation methods beyond GPS and credit
card transactions. An exceedingly common and incredibly precise tech-
nique uses Bluetooth beacons. These are devices that are typically installed
in indoor environments, such as retail stores, that allow apps installed on
customers’ phones to very precisely locate themselves. Depending on the
30 Power Geometrics of Connectivity

configuration of the beacons and the version of Bluetooth being used, these
beacons can provide location information down to a centimeter. Moreover,
when customers install a retailer’s app that utilizes these beacons, the retailers
can essentially keep track of which products they look at and the routes they
take through the store. Bluetooth beacons (as well as WiFi hotspots) are
also used by smartphones to better geolocate themselves when GPS signal
is poor. In fact, Android smartphones are known to send information about
nearby Bluetooth beacons to Google, enabling widespread collection of in-
credibly precise geospatial data (Yanofsky, 2018). Perhaps more importantly,
this occurs even when users disable Bluetooth, demonstrating just how diffi-
cult disconnection can be.
Another major trend that significantly impedes disconnection is the rise
of biometrics. Whereas the previous techniques require users to connect
in some way (such as by carrying a smartphone), biometrics allow govern-
ments and corporations to conduct mass geosurveillance of individuals and
populations regardless of the technology they carry. Simply existing in an
area where facial recognition is being conducted is enough to be entered
into a geosurveillance database. Unfortunately, facial recognition is rap-
idly being deployed into public life: The FBI and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) is applying facial recognition to millions of Americans’
driver license photos (Harwell, 2019); churches are using facial recognition
technology to track who attends church every Sunday (Hill, 2015); com-
panies like Clearview AI are scraping billions of images from the Internet
to create facial recognition databases, with customers that include law en-
forcement, Best Buy, and the NBA (Heilweil, 2020); even shopping malls are
already deploying facial recognition to track their customers (Rieger, 2018).
But even if one covers their face, computer vision algorithms can uniquely
identify people in video footage just by their clothing and, more insidiously,
their gait (how they walk). As a result, biometrics and computer vision al-
gorithms make disconnection from geosurveillance nearly impossible in
urban life.
While powerful, the above examples are relatively common methods of
geolocation. There are, however, more esoteric techniques that prove just
how difficult it is not to create location information. One such technique,
called PowerSpy, can determine the location of a smartphone based only on
the rate at which its battery drains (Michalevsky et al., 2015). Developed by
researchers at Stanford, PowerSpy exploits the fact that cell phone batteries
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
which overpass the bounds of instinct, and approach closely to those
of reason.
From its scent and by its quick strong vision the bear apprehends
the position of the seal. Then it throws itself prone upon the ice, and
profiting by inequalities which are invisible to human eyes, gradually
steals upon its destined victim by a soft and scarcely perceptible
movement of the hind feet. To hide its black muzzle, it constantly
uses its fore feet; and thus, only the dingy white of its coat being
visible, it is scarcely to be distinguished from the general mass of the
floe. Patiently it draws nearer and nearer; the seal, mistaking it for
one of its own congeners, or else yielding to a fatal curiosity,
delaying until its assailant, with one spring, is upon it.
Yet, as the old adage says, there is many a slip; and even in
these circumstances the bear does not always secure its feast. It is
disappointed sometimes just as the prey seems within its grasp; and
how keen the disappointment is can be appreciated only, we are
told, by hapless Arctic travellers, “who have been hours crawling up,
dreaming of delicious seal’s fry and overflowing fuel bags, and seen
the prey pop down a hole when within a hundred yards of it.” The
great muscular power of the seal frequently enables it to fling itself
into the water in spite of the bear’s efforts to hold it on the floe; Bruin,
however, retains his grip, for his diving powers are not much inferior
to those of the seal, and down they go together! Sometimes the bear
proves victorious, owing to mortal injuries inflicted upon the seal
before it reaches the water; sometimes it may be seen reappearing
at another hole in the floe, or clambering up another loose piece of
ice, apparently much mortified by its want of success.
 BEAR CATCHING A SEAL.
As we have said, the bear dives well, and is nearly as much at
home in the water as upon the ice. If it catches sight of a seal upon a
drifting floe, it will slide quietly into the sea, swim with only the tip of
its nose above the water, and, diving under the floe, reach the very
spot which the hapless seal has regarded as an oasis of safety. It is
this stratagem of its enemy which has taught the seal to watch its
hole so warily. Even on extensive ice-fields fast to the land, where
the bear cannot conceal its approach by taking advantage of
hummocks or other inequalities, the seal is not safe; for then Bruin
drops down a hole, and swims along under the ice-crust until it
reaches the one where the poor seal is all unwittingly enjoying its
last rays of sunshine.
The bear’s season of plenty begins with the coming of the spring.
In February and March the seal is giving birth to her young, who are
born blind and helpless, and for ten days are unable to take to the
water. The poor mothers use every effort to protect them, but, in
spite of their affectionate exertions, a perfect massacre of the
innocents takes place, in which, not improbably, the Arctic wolf is not
less guilty than the Arctic bear.
Voracity, however, frequently proves its own Nemesis, and the
bear, in its eager pursuit of prey, often involves itself in serious
disaster. The seal instinctively breeds as close as possible to the
open water. But the ice-floes, during the early equinoctial gales, will
sometimes break up and drift away in the form of pack-ice; a matter
of indifference, says Osborn, to the seal, but a question of life and
death to the bear. Borne afar on their little islets of ice, rocked by
tempestuous waters, buffeted by icy gales, numbers of these
castaways are lost along the whole area of the Polar Sea. It is said
that when the gales blow down from the north, bears are sometimes
stranded in such numbers on the shores of Iceland as to endanger
the safety of the flocks and herds of the Icelandic peasants; and they
have been known to reach the coasts of Norway.
Bears drifting about at a considerable distance from the land are
often enough seen by the whalers. They have been discovered fully
sixty miles from shore, in Davis Strait, without any ice in sight, and
utterly exhausted by long swimming. It is thus that Nature checks
their too rapid increase; for beyond the possibility of the wolf hunting
it in packs and destroying the cubs, there seems no other limitation
of their numbers. The Eskimos are too few, and too badly provided
with weapons, to slaughter them very extensively. Wherever seals
abound, so do bears; in Barrow Strait and in the Queen’s Channel
they have been seen in very numerous troops. The Danes assert
that they are plentiful about the northern settlement of Upernavik in
Greenland, for nine months in the year; and from the united
testimony of the natives inhabiting the north-eastern portion of Baffin
Bay, and that of Dr. Kane, who wintered in Smith Sound, it is evident
that they are plentiful about the polynias, or open pools, formed there
by the action of the tides.
In the summer months, when the bear is loaded with fat, it is
easily hunted down, for then it can neither move swiftly nor run long;
but in deep winter its voracity and its great strength render it a
formidable enemy to uncivilized and unarmed man. Usually it avoids
coming into contact with our British seamen, though instances are on
record of fiercely contested engagements, in which Bruin has with
difficulty been defeated.
It is folly, says Sherard Osborn, to talk of the Polar bear
hibernating: whatever bears may do on the American continent,
there is only one Arctic navigator who ever saw a bear’s nest! Bears
were seen at all points visited by our sailors in the course of
M’Clure’s expedition; at all times and in all temperatures; males or
females, and sometimes females with their cubs. In mid-winter, as
well as in midsummer, they evidently frequented spots where tides or
currents occasioned either water to constantly exist, or only allowed
such a thin coating of ice to form that the seal or walrus could easily
break through.
That the Polar bear does not willingly attack man, except when
hotly pursued or when suffering from extreme want, is asserted by
several good authorities, and confirmed by an experience which Dr.
Hayes relates. He was strolling one day along the shore, and
observing with much interest the effect of the recent spring-tides
upon the ice-foot, when, rounding a point of land, he suddenly found
himself confronted in the full moonlight by an enormous bear. It had
just sprung down from the land-ice, and met Dr. Hayes at full trot, so
that they caught sight of each other, man and brute, at the same
moment. Being without a rifle or other means of defence, Dr. Hayes
suddenly wheeled towards his ship, with much the same reflections,
probably, about discretion and valour as occurred to old Jack Falstaff
when the Douglas set upon him; but discovering, after a few lengthy
strides, that he was not “gobbled up,” he looked back over his
shoulder, when, to his gratification as well as surprise, he saw the
bear speeding towards the open water with a celerity which left no
doubt as to the state of its mind. It would be difficult to determine
which, on this occasion, was the more frightened, the bear or Dr.
Hayes!

A curious illustration of the combined voracity and epicureanism

of Bruin is recorded by Dr. Kane. A cache, or depôt of provisions,
which had been constructed by one of his exploring parties with
great care, and was intended to supply them with stores on their
return journey, they found completely destroyed. It had been built,
with every possible precaution, of rocks brought together by heavy
labour, and adjusted in the most skilful manner. So far as the means
of the builders permitted, the entire construction was most effective
and resisting. Yet these “tigers of the ice” seemed to have scarcely
encountered an obstacle. Not a morsel of pemmican (preserved
meat) remained, except in the iron cases, which, being round, with
conical ends, defied both claw and teeth. These they had rolled and
pawed in every direction,—tossing them about like footballs,
although upwards of eighty pounds in weight. An alcohol-case,
strongly iron-bound, was dashed into small fragments; and a tin can
of liquor twisted almost into a ball. The bears’ strong claws had
perforated the metal, and torn it up as with a chisel.
 BEARS DESTROYING A CACHE.
But the burglars were too dainty for salt meats. For ground coffee
they had evidently a relish; old canvas was also a favourite,—de
gustibus non est disputandum; even the flag which had been reared
“to take possession” of the icy wilderness, was gnawed down to the
very staff. It seemed that the bears had enjoyed a regular frolic;
rolling the bread-barrels over the ice-foot and into the broken outside
ice; and finding themselves unable to masticate the heavy India-
rubber cloth, they had amused themselves by tying it up in
unimaginable hard knots.

The she-bear displays a strong affection for her young, which she
will not desert even in the extremity of peril. The explorer already
quoted furnishes an interesting narrative of a pursuit of mother and
cub, in which the former’s maternal qualities were touchingly
exhibited.
On the appearance of the hunting party and their dogs, the bear
fled; but the little one being unable either to keep ahead of the dogs
or to maintain the same rate of speed as its mother, the latter turned
back, and, putting her head under its haunches, threw it some
distance forward. The cub being thus safe for the moment, she
would wheel round and face the dogs, so as to give it a chance to
run away; but it always stopped where it had alighted, until its mother
came up, and gave it another forward impulse; it seemed to expect
her aid, and would not go forward without it. Sometimes the mother
would run a few yards in advance, as if to coax her cub up to her,
and when the dogs approached she would turn fiercely upon them,
and drive them back. Then, as they dodged her blows, she would
rejoin the cub, and push it on,—sometimes putting her head under it,
sometimes seizing it in her mouth by the nape of its neck.

FIGHT WITH A WHITE BEAR.

 For some time she conducted her retreat with equal skill and
celerity, leaving the two hunters far in the rear. They had sighted her
on the land-ice; but she led the dogs in-shore, up a small stony
valley which penetrated into the interior. After going a mile and a
half, however, her pace slackened, and, the little one being spent,
she soon came to a halt, evidently determined not to desert it.
At this moment the men were only half a mile behind; and,
running at full speed, they soon reached the spot where the dogs
were holding her at bay. The fight then grew desperate. The mother
never moved more than two yards ahead, constantly and
affectionately looking at her cub. When the dogs drew near, she sat
upon her haunches, and taking the little one between her hind legs,
she fought her assailants with her paws, roaring so loudly that she
could have been heard a mile off. She would stretch her neck and
snap desperately at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling
her paws like the sails of a windmill. If she missed her aim, not
daring to pursue one dog lest the others should pounce upon her
cub, she uttered a deep howl of baffled rage, and on she went,
pawing and snapping, and facing the ring, grinning at them with
wide-opened jaws.
When the hunters came up, the little one apparently had
recovered its strength a little, for it was able to turn round with its
dam, however quickly she moved, so as always to keep in front of
her belly. Meantime the dogs were actively jumping about the she-
bear, tormenting her like so many gadflies; indeed, it was difficult to
fire at her without running the risk of killing the dogs. But Hans, one
of the hunters, resting on his elbow, took a quiet, steady aim, and
shot her through the head. She dropped at once, and rolled over
dead, without moving a muscle.
Immediately the dogs sprang towards her; but the cub jumped
upon her body and reared up, for the first time growling hoarsely.
They seemed quite afraid of the little creature, she fought so actively,
and made so much noise; and, while tearing mouthfuls of hair from
the dead mother, they would spring aside the minute the cub turned
towards them. The men drove the dogs off for a time, but were
compelled to shoot the cub at last, as she would not quit the body.
 A still more stirring episode is recorded by Dr. Kane, which will
fitly conclude our account of the Polar bear.
“Nannook! nannook!” (A bear! a bear!) With this welcome shout,
Hans and Morton, two of his attendants, roused Dr. Kane one fine
Saturday morning.
To the scandal of his domestic regulations, the guns were all
impracticable. While the men were loading and capping anew, Dr.
Kane seized his pillow-companion six-shooter, and ran on deck, to
discover a medium-sized bear, with a four-months’ cub, in active
warfare with the dogs. They were hanging on her skirts, and she,
with remarkable alertness, was picking out one victim after another,
snatching him by the nape of the neck, and flinging him many feet, or
rather yards, by a scarcely perceptible movement of her head.
Tudea, the best dog, was already hors de combat; he had been
tossed twice. Jenny, another of the pack, made an extraordinary
somerset of nearly fifty feet, and alighted senseless. Old Whitey, a
veteran combatant, stanch, but not “bear-wise,” had been foremost
in the battle; soon he lay yelping, helplessly, on the snow.
It seemed as if the battle were at an end; and nannook certainly
thought so, for she turned aside to the beef-barrels, and began with
the utmost composure to turn them over, and nose out their fatness.
A bear more innocent of fear does not figure in the old, old stories of
Barents and the Spitzbergen explorers.
Dr. Kane now lodged a pistol-ball in the side of the cub. At once
the mother placed her little one between her hind legs, and, shoving
it along, made her way to the rear of the store or “beef-house.” As
she went she received a rifle-shot, but scarcely seemed to notice it.
By the unaided efforts of her fore arms she tore down the barrels of
frozen beef which made the triple walls of the store-house, mounted
the rubbish, and snatching up a half barrel of herrings, carried it
down in her teeth, and prepared to slip away. It was obviously time to
arrest her movements. Going up within half pistol-range, Dr. Kane
gave her six buck-shot. She dropped, but instantly rose, and getting
her cub into its former position, away she sped!
And this time she would undoubtedly have effected her escape,
but for the admirable tactics of Dr. Kane’s canine Eskimo allies. The
Smith Sound dogs, he says, are educated more thoroughly than any
of their more southern brethren. Next to the seal and the walrus, the
bear supplies the staple diet of the tribes of the North, and, except
the fox, furnishes the most important element of their wardrobe.
Unlike the dogs Dr. Kane had brought with him from Baffin Bay, the
Smith Sound dogs were trained, not to attack, but to embarrass.
They revolved in circles round the perplexed bear, and when
pursued would keep ahead with regulated gait, their comrades
accomplishing a diversion at the critical moment by a nip at the
nannook’s hind-quarters. This was done in the most systematic
manner possible, and with a truly wonderful composure. “I have seen
bear-dogs elsewhere,” says Dr. Kane, “that had been drilled to
relieve each other in the mêlée, and avoid the direct assault; but
here, two dogs, without even a demonstration of attack, would put
themselves before the path of the animal, and retreating right and
left, lead him into a profitless pursuit that checked his advance
completely.”
The unfortunate animal was still fighting, and still retreating,
embarrassed by the dogs, yet affectionately carrying along her
wounded cub, and though wounded, bleeding, and fatigued, gaining
ground upon her pursuers, when Hans and Dr. Kane secured the
victory, such as it was, for their own side, by delivering a couple of
rifle-balls. She staggered in front of her young one, confronted her
assailants in death-like defiance, and did not sink until pierced by six
more bullets.
When her body was skinned, no fewer than nine balls were
discovered. She proved to be of medium size, very lean, and without
a particle of food in her stomach. Hunger, probably, had stimulated
her courage to desperation. The net weight of the cleansed carcass
was 300 pounds; that of the entire animal, 650 pounds; her length,
only 7 feet 8 inches.
 It is said that bears in this lean condition are more palatable and
wholesome than when fat; and that the impregnation of fatty oil
through the cellular tissues makes a well-fed bear nearly uneatable.
The flesh of a famished beast, though less nutritious as body-fuel or
as a stimulating diet, is rather sweet and tender than otherwise.
Moral: starve your bear before you eat him!
The little cub was larger than the qualifying adjective would imply.
She was taller than a dog, and her weight 114 lbs. She sprang upon
the corpse of her slaughtered mother, and rent the air with woful
lamentations. All efforts to noose her she repelled with singular
ferocity; but at last, being completely muzzled with a line fastened by
a running knot between her jaws and the back of her head, she was
dragged off to the brig amid the uproar of the dogs.
Dr. Kane asserts that during this fight, and the compulsory
somersets which it involved, not a dog suffered seriously. He
expected, from his knowledge of the hugging propensity of the
plantigrades, that the animal would rear, or it she did not rear, would
at least use her fore arms; but she invariably seized the dogs with
her teeth, and after disposing of them for a time, refrained from
following up her advantage,—probably because she had her cub to
take care of. The Eskimos state that this is the habit of the hunted
bear. One of the Smith Sound dogs made no exertion whatever
when he was seized, but allowed himself to be flung, with all his
muscles relaxed, a really fearful distance; the next instant he rose
and renewed the attack. According to the Eskimos, the dogs soon
learn this “possum-playing” habit.
It would seem that the higher the latitude, the more ferocious the
bear, or that he increases in ferocity as he recedes from the usual
hunting-fields.
At Oominak, one winter day, an Eskimo and his son were nearly
killed by a bear that had housed himself in an iceberg. They attacked
him with the lance, but he boldly turned on them, and handled them
severely before they could make their escape.
The continued hostility of man, however, has had, in Dr. Kane’s
opinion, a modifying influence upon the ursine character in South
Greenland; at all events, the bears of that region never attack, and
even in self-defence seldom inflict injury upon, the hunters. Many
instances have occurred where they have defended themselves, and
even charged after having been wounded, but in none of them was
life lost.
A stout Eskimo, an assistant to a Danish cooper of Upernavik,
fired at a she-bear, and the animal closed at the instant of receiving
the ball. The man had the presence of mind to fling himself prone on
the ground, extending his arm to protect his head, and afterwards
lying perfectly motionless. The beast was deceived. She gave the
arm a bite or two, but finding her enemy did not stir, she retired a few
paces, and sat upon her haunches to watch. But her watch was not
as wary as it should have been, for the hunter dexterously reloaded
his rifle, and slew her with the second shot.

It has been pointed out that in approaching the bear the hunters
should take advantage of the cover afforded by the inequalities of
the frozen surface, such as its ridges and hillocks. These vary in
height, from ten feet to a hundred, and frequently are packed so
closely together as to leave scarcely a yard of level surface. It is in
such a region that the Polar bear exhibits his utmost speed, and in
such a region his pursuit is attended with no slight difficulty.

And after the day’s labour comes the night’s rest; but what a
night! We know what night is in these temperate climes, or in the
genial southern lands; a night of stars, with a deep blue sky
overspreading the happy earth like a dome of sapphire: a night of
brightness and serene glory, when the moon is high in the heaven,
and its soft radiance seems to touch tree and stream, hill and vale,
with a tint of silver; a night of storm, when the clouds hang low and
heavily, and the rain descends, and a wailing rushing wind loses
itself in the recesses of the shuddering woods; we know what night
is, in these temperate regions, under all its various aspects,—now
mild and beautiful, now gloomy and sad, now grand and
tempestuous; the long dark night of winter with its frosty airs, and its
drooping shadows thrown back by the dead surface of the snow; the
brief bright night of summer, which forms so short a pause between
the evening of one day and the morning of another, that it seems
intended only to afford the busy earth a breathing-time;—but we can
form no idea of what an Arctic Night is, in all its mystery,
magnificence, and wonder. Strange stars light up the heavens; the
forms of earth are strange; all is unfamiliar, and almost unintelligible.
 STALKING A BEAR.
It is not that the Arctic night makes a heavy demand on our
physical faculties. Against its rigour man is able to defend himself;
but it is less easy to provide against its strain on the moral and
intellectual faculties. The darkness which clothes Nature for so long
a period reveals to the senses of the European explorer what is
virtually a new world, and the senses do not well adapt themselves
to that world. The cheering influences of the rising sun, which invite
to labour; the soothing influences of the evening twilight, which
beguile to rest; that quick change from day to night, and night to day,
which so lightens the burden of existence in our temperate clime to
mind and soul and body, kindling the hope and renewing the
courage,—all these are wanting in the Polar world, and man suffers
and languishes accordingly. The grandeur of Nature, says Dr. Hayes,
ceases to give delight to the dulled sympathies, and the heart longs
continually for new associations, new hopes, new objects, new
sources of interest and pleasure. The solitude is so dark and drear
as to oppress the understanding; the imagination is haunted by the
desolation which everywhere prevails; and the silence is so absolute
as to become a terror.
The lover of Nature will, of course, find much that is attractive in
the Arctic night; in the mysterious coruscations of the aurora, in the
flow of the moonlight over the hills and icebergs, in the keen
clearness of the starlight, in the sublimity of the mountains and the
glaciers, in the awful wildness of the storms; but it must be owned
that they speak a language which is rough, rugged, and severe.
All things seem built up on a colossal scale in the Arctic world.
Colossal are those dark and tempest-beaten cliffs which oppose
their grim rampart to the ceaseless roll and rush of the ice-clad
waters. Colossal are those mountain-peaks which raise their crests,
white with unnumbered winters, into the very heavens. Colossal are
those huge ice-rivers, those glaciers, which, born long ago in the
depths of the far-off valleys, have gradually moved their ponderous
masses down to the ocean’s brink. Colossal are those floating
islands of ice, which, outrivalling the puny architecture of man, his
temples, palaces, and pyramids, drift away into the wide waste of
waters, as if abandoned by the Hand that called them into existence.
Colossal is that vast sheet of frozen, frosty snow, shimmering with a
crystalline lustre, which covers the icy plains for countless leagues,
and stretches away, perhaps, to the very border of the sea that is
supposed to encircle the unattained Pole.
In Dr. Hayes’ account of his voyage of discovery towards the
North Pole occurs a fine passage descriptive of the various phases
of the Arctic night. “I have gone out often,” he says, “into its
darkness, and viewed Nature under different aspects. I have rejoiced
with her in her strength, and communed with her in her repose. I
have seen the wild burst of her anger, have watched her sportive
play, and have beheld her robed in silence. I have walked abroad in
the darkness when the winds were roaring through the hills and
crashing over the plain. I have strolled along the beach when the
only sound that broke the stillness was the dull creaking of the ice-
floes, as they rose and fell lazily with the tide. I have wandered far
out upon the frozen sea, and listened to the voice of the icebergs
bewailing their imprisonment; along the glacier, where forms and
falls the avalanche; upon the hill-top, where the drifting snow,
coursing over the rocks, sung its plaintive song; and again, I have
wandered away to some distant valley where all these sounds were
hushed, and the air was still and solemn as the tomb.”
Whoever has been overtaken by a winter night, when crossing
some snowy plain, or making his way over the hills and through the
valleys, in the deep drifts, and with the icicles pendent from the
leafless boughs, and the white mantle overspreading every object
dimly discernible in the darkness, will have felt the awe and mystery
of the silence that then and there prevails. Both the sky above and
the earth beneath reveal only an endless and unfathomable quiet.
This, too, is the peculiar characteristic of the Arctic night. Evidence
there is none of life or motion. No footfall of living thing breaks on the
longing ear. No cry of bird enlivens the scene; there is no tree,
among the branches of which the wind may sigh and moan. And
hence it is that one who had travelled much, and seen many
dangers, and witnessed Nature in many phases, was led to say that
he had seen no expression on the face of Nature so filled with terror
as the silence of the Arctic night.
But by degrees the darkness grows less intense, and the coming
of the day is announced by the prevalence of a kind of twilight, which
increases more and more rapidly as winter passes into spring. There
are signs that Nature is awakening once more to life and motion. The
foxes come out upon the hill side, both blue and white, and gallop
hither and thither in search of food,—following in the track of the
bear, to feed on the refuse which the “tiger of the ice” throws aside.
The walrus and the seal come more frequently to land; and the latter
begins to assemble on the ice-floes, and select its breeding-places.
At length, early in February, broad daylight comes at noon, and then
the weary explorer rejoices to know that the end is near. Flocks of
speckled birds arrive, and shelter themselves under the lee of the
shore; chiefly dove-kies, as they are called in Southern Greenland—
the Uria grylle of the naturalist. At last, on the 18th or 19th of
February, the sun once more makes its appearance above the
southern horizon, and is welcomed as one welcomes a friend who
has been long lost, and is found again. Upon the crests of the hills
light clouds are floating lazily, and through these the glorious orb is
pouring a stream of golden fire, and all the southern sky quivers, as
it were, with the shooting, shifting splendours of the coming day.
Presently a soft bright ray breaks through the vaporous haze,
kindling it into a purple sea, and touches the silvery summits of the
lofty icebergs until they seem like domes and pinnacles of flame.
Nearer and nearer comes that auspicious ray, and widens as it
comes; and that purple sea enlarges in every direction; and those
domes and pinnacles of flame multiply in quick succession as they
feel the passage of the quickening light; and the dark red cliffs are
warmed with an indescribable glow; and a mysterious change
passes over the face of the ocean; and all Nature acknowledges the
presence of the sun!
“The parent of light and life everywhere,” says Dr. Hayes, “he is
the same within these solitudes. The germ awaits him here as in the
Orient; but there it rests only through the short hours of a summer
night, while here it reposes for months under a sheet of snows. But
after a while the bright sun will tear this sheet asunder, and will
tumble it in gushing fountains to the sea, and will kiss the cold earth,
and give it warmth and life; and the flowers will bud and bloom, and
will turn their tiny faces smilingly and gratefully up to him, as he
wanders over these ancient hills in the long summer. The very
glaciers will weep tears of joy at his coming. The ice will loose its iron
grip upon the waters, and will let the wild waves play in freedom. The
reindeer will skip gleefully over the mountains to welcome his return,
and will look longingly to him for the green pastures. The sea-fowls,
knowing that he will give them a resting-place for their feet on the
rocky islands, will come to seek the moss-beds which he spreads for
their nests; and the sparrows will come on his life-giving rays, and
will sing their love-songs through the endless day.”
With the sun return the Arctic birds, and before we quit the realm
of waters we propose to glance at a few of those which frequent the
cliffs and shores during the brief Polar summer.
 Among the first-comers is the dove-kie or black guillemot (Uria
grylle), which migrates to the temperate climates on the approach of
winter, visiting Labrador, Norway, Scotland, and even descending as
far south as Yorkshire. In fact, we know of no better place where to
observe its habits than along the immense range of perpendicular
cliffs stretching from Flamborough Head to Filey Bay. Here, on the
bare ledges of this colossal ocean-wall, the guillemot lays its eggs,
but without the protection of a nest; some of them parallel with the
edge of the shelf, others nearly so, and others with their blunt and
sharp ends indiscriminately pointing to the sea. They are not affixed
to the rock by any glutinous matter, or any foreign substance
whatever. You may see as many as nine or ten, or sometimes
twelve, old guillemots in a line, so near to each other that their wings
almost touch. The eggs vary greatly in size and shape and colour.
Some are large, others small; some exceedingly sharp at one end,
others rotund and globular. It is said that, if undisturbed, the
guillemot never lays more than one egg; but if that be taken away,
she will lay another, and so on. But Audubon asserts that he has
seen these birds sitting on as many as three eggs at a time.
 SEA-BIRDS IN THE POLAR REGIONS.
The black guillemot differs from the foolish guillemot (Uria troile)
only in the colour of its plumage, which, with the exception of a large
white patch on the coverts of each wing, is black, silky, and glossy;
the feathers appearing to be all unwebbed, like silky filaments or fine
hair. The bill, in all the species, is slender, strong, and pointed; the
upper mandible bending slightly near the end, and the base covered
with soft short feathers. The food of the guillemot consists of fish and
other marine products.

The Alcidæ, or auks, are also included amongst the Arctic birds.
The little auk (Arctica alca) frequents the countries stretching
northwards from our latitudes to the regions of perpetual ice, and is
found in the Polar Regions both of the Old World and the New. Here,
indeed, they congregate in almost innumerable flocks. At early morn
they sally forth to get their breakfast, which consists of different
varieties of marine invertebrates, chiefly crustaceans, with which the
Arctic waters teem. Then they return to the shore in immense
swarms. It would be impossible, says an Arctic voyager, to convey
an adequate idea of the numbers of these birds which swarmed
around him. The slope on both sides of the valley in which he had
pitched his camp rose at an angle of about forty-five degrees to a
distance of from 300 to 500 feet, where it met the cliffs, which stood
about 700 feet higher. These hill-sides are composed of the loose
rocks detached from the cliffs by the action of the frost. The birds
crawl among these rocks, winding far in through narrow places, and
there deposit their eggs and hatch their young, secure from their
great enemy, the Arctic fox.