CULTURE OF DIGITAL NOMADS: ONTOLOGICAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL, AND SEMIOTIC ASPECTS
Tomsk State University, Russia
Tomsk State University, Russia
Abstract
“Digital nomads” (DN) is a metaphor, which used to be nothing but a neologism some time ago (Makimoto, Manners, 1997). But it presented the essence of the phenomenon so fairly that over the next few years became very popular in journalism. Moreover, it turned into the commonly used scientific term in the interdisciplinary discourse among social philosophers, social scientists, media theoreticians, economists, and architects.
Digital nomads are people who, in the processes of their professional activities (or studying, creating art, free time), are not confined to particular spots through using Internet technologies and mobile connection. Therefore, the phenomenon of DN belongs solely to the network information-communication society. It appeared in the context of two inter-dependent global trends: mobility and digitalization.
The number of DN increases. At first they were the inhabitants of “wireless” megapolises. Today, due to the development of satellite communication, they can be seen in countryside, cold and regular deserts, etcetera. In order to become a digital nomad, it is not necessary to be a dedicated traveler or to move from one place to another in a common, physical sense. The major point is to be always “plugged” to the Net through some sorts of gadgets. This “plugging” is the key factor which determines a digital nomad.
The culture of DN is constantly evolving and turning into the “universal” culture of the network society. In some sense, it covers various traditional cultures and subcultures and absorbs them (assimilates). In this regard, people are starting facing different issues. The one that should really draw our attention is that the practical aspects of digital nomadism anticipate developing its theoretical grounds. Studying “digital nomadism” today is, in most cases, fixating and describing specific life situations (cases) and discussing them in blogs.
There are many questions that have not been answered yet. For instance:
· What is the ontology (form of existence and world view) of digital nomadism, which determines its culture and social practices?
· What are the anthropological changes people must go through in order to become true DN?
· What are the specific characters of digital nomadism culture as of combination of sign systems, characterized by certain processes, codes, and media?
· What determines identity and limits of this culture?
· What artifacts and “mentifacts” (Posner, 2004) constitute it?
· What are the relations between network society, civilization, and DN’ mentality on one hand and sign systems on the other?
The authors of the given paper try to find answers to these questions base their arguments on specifically developed methodological complex. It is based on the ideas from postmodern philosophy (G. Deleuze and F. Guattari) (“rhizome”, “nomadism”); theory of information network society (M. Castels); theory of “extended sensory organs” (M. McLuhan); cultural and semiotic approach (E. Cassirer, J. Lotman, R. Posner); theory of mobility (J. Urri); concept of “digital nomadism” (T. Makimoto, D. Manners) and some others. Beyond that, the authors are applying the method of “parallel metaphorization”. It is basically a search for names of artifacts and “mentifacts” in the socio-cultural system of traditional nomads which can be used as metaphors for determining corresponding artifacts and “mentifacts” in the culture of digital nomads.
1. Introduction
In the 1970s of the last century the term “nomad” (from Latin – “nomas” – shepherd) became a key one in nomadology, which is a metaphoric post-modernist concept of “new tribalism” by G. Deleuze and F. Guattari (1986). The concept was the result of their philosophical reflection on the eternal opposition between state power and individual freedom. Searching for something that could stand up to such power Deleuze and Guattari came up with the idea of nomads. Nomads appeared to be the power, which had been capable of destroying the strongest empires.
Aspects of new nomadism represented by J. Attali (1991) were not as much philosophical as they were social and political, economic, and partly anthropological. He argued that the beginning of new millennium was marked by establishing a digital-nomad form of hyper-industrial society. Attali represents the concept of “nomad goods” – affordable, compact, and functional devices and gadgets irreplaceable for super-mobile members of global techno-centrist society.
T. Makimoto’s and D. Manners’s “anarchic” book (1997) renewed interest in the nomad theme in late 1990s. The authors pointed out that digital nomads are people who, in the process of their professional activities (or studying, art, free time), are not confined to particular spots due to access to the Internet and mobile communication. “Digital Nomads” as a metaphor became popular. Moreover, it became a scientific term for interdisciplinary discourse among sociologists (Urri 2000), social psychologists (Rosseel 2000), linguists (Baron 2001), economists, media theoreticians, and architects (Kakihara and Sorensen 2001, Mitchell 2004).
IT-corporations promoted and romanticized the image of digital nomads. In reality, digital nomads are often perceived as freaks and geeks. But nowadays, thanks to the development of satellite communications, one can meet them in villages, deserts, and rain forests. Therefore, the phenomenon of digital nomadism belongs solely to the network information-communication society (Castells 1996). Nevertheless, digital nomadism, as the idea and the new socio-cultural practice, was still comparatively infrequent object of scientific discourses and critics. The major problem is the following: cultural practice of digital nomads goes far ahead of establishing its philosophical and theoretical foundations that would allow predicting the consequences of its evolution and globalization for the humanity.
Many issues, concerning this new cultural practice, require permanent professional philosophical and scientific attention. First of all, we mean the questions of ontological, anthropological, and semiotic character. For instance: the ontology of digital nomadism; anthropological changes, which accompany its development; specifics of digital nomadic culture as of combination of sign systems; something that determines identity and limits of this culture; artifacts and “mentifacts” (Posner 2004), which constitute it. Our objective is to find general answers to these questions, applying specifically selected methodology.
2. Methodology
Methodology of our research is based on specifically selected philosophical and scientific concepts and theories. They fulfill each other and allow shaping the most ultimate conception of the object in question – the culture of digital nomads. Apart from the very concepts of “digital nomadism” proposed by T. Makimoto and D. Manners (1997), J. Meyrowitz (2003), W.J. Mitchell (2004) and of “digital goods” proposed by J. Attali (1991), the grounds of this complex consist of: post-modern philosophy and theory of post-structuralism (G. Deleuze and F. Guattari 1987, M. Foucault 2001); concept of “symbolic capital” (J. Baudrillard 1981); theory of “extended senses” by means of media (M. McLuhan 1994); theory of information network society by M. Castells (1996); concept of hierarchic network society (A. Bard and J. Soderqvist 2002); theory of “virtual reality” and “virtual class” (M. Heim 1997, U. Eco 1986); theories of mobility (J. Urri 2000) and “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman 2000); anthropological approach (B. Anderson 1991); social and psychological approach (E. Rosseel 2000); cultural and semiotic approach (E. Cassirer 2002, J. Lotman 2002, R. Posner 2004); concepts of “digitalization” and “digital culture” (C. Gere 2002, S. Dixon 2007); and several other theories and concepts.
3. Ontological aspect
Digital nomadism is entirely the phenomenon of the modern network information-communication society. Therefore, we will consider the ontology of this society. There are at least two positions to define its specifics.
3.1. Utopian position
The very name of the network information-communication society represents its basic characteristics and trends: networking nature, informatization, domination of communication processes over all other processes, globalization, technologization, digitalization, and computerization. All those trends are interdependent. However, many philosophers and scientists believe that general technologization is the original cause of all other factors and consequences (D. Bell 1973, Z. Brzeziński 1970, J. K. Galbraith 2007, M. McLuhan 1994, M. Castells 1996, J. Naisbitt 1982, etc.).
The first opinions on this new society were formulated long before it was actually founded. Futurologists-technocrats did not deny it would face different problems. However, they believed that humanity would be able to solve them with the help from new digital and computer technologies. “Bright future” was supposed to be based on the economy of new type (“based on knowledge”, “informational”, “super-symbolical”, “service”), end of beurocracy, and victory of democracy. Futurologists-optimists and technocrats formulated the following key metaphors for the ontology of the environment and the place of life/work: global village (McLuhan 1964); global metropolis (Kahn and Bruse-Briggs 1972); global city (Sassen 2001); electronic cottage (Toffler 1980). Being very different, those approaches still have some things in common. They describe the most traditional – for most people – places of life and work. Places that do not conflict with the human existential nature. Such optimistic view on the information future of the humanity was dominant in social philosophy, social studies, and futurology during the last third of the XX century.
3.2. Anti-utopian position
The forthcoming global society was described differently by futurologists-”anti-utopianists”; existentialists; Frankfurt School theorists; post-structuralists and post-modernists; some present-day sociologists, economists, and researchers in the field of social communication and new media (A. Huxley 2005, G. Orwell 2003, K. Jaspers 1953, H. Marcuse 1991, J. Baudrillard 1981, M. Foucault 2001, Z. Bauman 2000, P. Virilio 2010, S. Garfinkel 2000, J. Attali 1991, A. Bard and J. Soderqvist 2002, W.J. Mitchell 2004, etc.). The artistic, philosophical, and scientific concepts they represented were different. But they all had one thing in common: the lack of any “rosy expectations” in the “portraits” of the post-industrial stage of human development. They understood the ambivalent nature of technologies, which are capable of spinning out of human control and managing people, both straightly and secretly. They were under no illusion about transparency and non-hierarchical nature of the network society.
Most of the authors mentioned above realized the dominant types of capital in the network society. Those are information, symbolic, and reputation types of capital, not knowledge one, as it had been stated before. Computer technologies are capable of finding, organizing, and keeping data. They are not capable of producing knowledge. Knowledge is a product of human consciousness. Therefore, the society becomes “information”, not “knowledge-based” one. The ontology of the forthcoming society is defined here as information-communicative, self-organizing, based on the principles of chaos and order; and as an organized simulacrum space. “Space hybridity” describes the lack of distinct line between virtuality and reality and is one of the most important characteristics of the network society. It is determined by the terms virtual reality, real virtuality, and augmented reality. Its structure is characterized as hierarchic networking, risomatic, neural, fractal, matrix, and fluid. Anti-utopianists observe the effect of time and space compression and actualize the parameters of speed and mobility. The latter implies not only physical moving of people the real world, but also their “moving” in the virtual space (Urri 2000).
This society has a super-complex character because of its ontology and structure. It also faces various unresolved problems such as the lack of any distinctive line between real and virtual, information wars, hacking, total digital control and manipulation of collective and individual consciousness; digital terrorism; universal access to pornography; “digital inequality”, and some other. All that led to certain metaphoric definitions for this kind of society: super-complex/super-mobile society, society of risk, society of total control, virtual society, viral society, society of digital natives and digital immigrants, NETocracy.
The key metaphors of the ontology of space and place of residence/work in the “anti-utopian” paradigm of the network society are: virtual space, hyper-space, augmented reality, maze, net, matrix, social nets, information highways, digital hubs, digital copies of cities, global digital agora. These spaces, highways, and hubs are inhabited or used by digital nomads.
4. Anthropological aspect
There are utopian and anti-utopian views on the ontology of the network information-communication society. This society is a context for digital nomadism phenomenon. These views have shaped certain ideas about anthropological changes and trends that may take or are already taking place.
4.1 Anthropological changes under the utopian paradigm
Neither of the approaches under this paradigm was antagonistically related to existential and social essence of an individual, threatened the integrity of his personality, destroyed his identity, or deprived him of the freedom. Moreover, the biggest-ever “sense organs extension” (McLuhan 1994) and qualitative brain improvement with the help of electronic computing machines (Toffler 2002) were expected. New reason for being optimistic was brought by “digital nomads” at the end of 1990s and the beginning of 2000s. The former term was proposed by T. Makimoto and D. Manners (1997). Wireless communication and “constant plugging” created “continuous fields of presence” and helped digital nomads to do business, to study, to play the market, to participate in auctions, to order goods, and to do other things with no regard to any particular place of residence (Mitchell 2004).
In 2008, “The Economist” published a series of papers on digital nomadism (A wireless world…: 2008 n.p.; A wireless world…: 2008 n.p.). The whole spectrum of its positive characteristics was proposed to the audience. Digital nomad is a free person, at least, from an office table. He chooses what he does as well as where he does it. Being an owner of some business, he does not need to waste money on the office rental. He and his employees have meetings with partners and clients at, so called, “third places” (Oldenburg 1989). This work style increases labor effectiveness and improves democratization. Digital nomad spends more time with his family. He outsources services when it comes to something that troubles or burdens him, including his own memory. Now he does not have to memorize anything, because he has special devices, such as memory sticks and hard-drives, for that.
Digital nomad can travel, work, or study, permanently exploring the world around. Technologies are so good – they are mobile, multifunctional, and portable – that one does not need to carry a lot of things. It is enough to have a laptop or a smartphone and to know where the nearest “sanctuaries” – cafes, gas stations, and sockets – are. Those are places where one can recharge, literally and figuratively. Geolocation services can help with that too. Chains of special – “nomadic” – industry offer their services and products to digital nomads. The main thing is – digital nomad is free to choose partners for communication. As a result – he becomes more relaxed, active, and creative. However, there is an opposite view on digital nomadism as an “ideal” cultural practice that leads to certain anthropological changes.
4.2. Anthropological changes under the anti-utopian paradigm
Total technologization of the society led to the following contradictions and problems of anthropological nature: existential crisis; compartmentalization and distortion of identity; simulacrization of consciousness; substitution of real communication for virtual one; computer addiction; unpredictable brain changes under the influence of electronic and digital technologies; lack of ability to control information flows, and so on.
J. Attali presented one of the most anti-utopian scenarios on the anthropological changes related to the digital nomadism. He argued that a nomad has particular mission, which is to contribute to the universal heritage via self-liberation. He is committed to turning his life into a piece of art instead of to boring reproducing other self-like humans. This process of “turning life into a piece of art” may be so creative that sooner or later might lead to “nomadic madness” and “industrial cannibalism”. In Attali’s opinion, anthropological aspect of digital nomadism goes beyond the limits of the humane sense (Attali 1991).
A. Bard and J. Soderqvist draw the picture of the modern society as of the society of digital nomads, almost “from life”: virtual return to the nomadic times, which we owe to the digital networks, is very peculiar, as the idea of a permanent home does not represent some kind of “standing point” any more, which stimulates further experiments with different life styles (Bard and Soderqvist 2002). According to D. Rushkoff, only present matters to the people of the digital age. All their demands must be satisfied here and now. There is so much information in the digital world that they simply do not have enough time to turn it into knowledge. Rushkoff points out a “narrative collapse”: the new online content does not require the art of narration from a person. Rushkoff finds very sharp metaphors to reveal the essence of the amazing anthropological phenomena of the network society. For instance, he calls a digital mailbox a “big infinite loop” that causes “digiphrenia” (digital schizophrenia) (Rushkoff 2013: 76).
Total freedom from time and space routine and opportunity of self-employment are advantages of digital nomadism. However, there is an opposite side to that too. I fact, everyone, who works for himself, has a tyrannical boss. In other words, digital nomads are permanently anxious and stressed because their labor productivity is not high enough comparing to the opportunities they have. Digital nomads often act as addicts or gamblers when they cannot get rid of their need to be connected. Special surveys show that most nomads are slaves to their habits. They take the same routes and follow the same schedules every day (Gonzales, Hidalgo and Barabasi 2008: 71).
E. Rosseel also conducted a survey. But his results showed that it is quasi-impossible to predict digital nomad’s future taking into account his present. This unpredictability concerns, at least, four aspects of the nomad’s life: 1) place of his residence; 2) professional activity; 3) marital status; and 4) his personalization and subjectivization. From the socio-psychological point of view, “nomad” means mobility in literally everything. He can easily change his attitudes, place of residence, identity; he can master new social practices and professional skills (Rosseel 2001). Thus, digital nomadism as an anthropological phenomenon raises many questions and requires further research.
5. Semiotic aspect
Cultural and semiotic approach proposed by E. Cassirer (2002), J. Lotman (2002), and R. Posner (2004) considers: i) the culture of digital nomads as a semiosphere or a set of sign systems used by digital nomads to develop and maintain their identity and relations with the world around in the network information-communication society; ii) digital nomads as a community of sign users and their civilization (artifacts and technologies) as a set of texts; and iii) digital nomads’ mental culture and mentality (ideas, values) as a set of conventional codes.
5.1. Specifics, identity, and limits of the culture of digital nomads
This question may be reformulated to the question about codes and media that are involved into sign processes initiated and interpreted by digital nomads inside their sign systems. By codes we mean “a set of signifiers, a set of signifieds, and a set of rules which determine the relation of these to each other” (Posner 2004: 59) or “systems of correlation between signifiers and signifieds” (Posner 2004: 70). In this regard, key codes of sign systems, constituting the culture of digital nomads, are semantic connections between the key metaphorical terms (signifiers) and corresponding traditions, artifacts, technologies, social institutions and spaces, rituals, etc. (signifieds). Those semantic connections must be encoded and decoded identically by all bearers of the culture of digital nomads. Such pairs of signifiers and signifieds, among others, are: “nomadism” = real and virtual mobility; “nomadic items” = mobile devices; “desert” = the Internet; “oases” = “third places” (cafes, public libraries, Wi-Fi zones, etc.); “fires” = “virtual fires” (forums and meetings in “third places”). Originally the codes of digital nomadism were artificial (conventional) but gradually have become natural (behavioral). All these codes are connected with intellectual culture (mentality) of the global community of digital nomads. It may illustrate the following statement: “Any mentality is to be understood as a set of codes” (Posner 2004: 70).
The term “medium” which is used “to designate a constellation of factors which remains the same over a wide range of sign processes” (Posner 2004: 60). Technological media (computers, mobile connection devices, various electronic devices and gadgets) play a special role in organizing sign processes in the culture of digital nomads. Sometimes they are hardly distinguishable from physical media. Conventionally speaking, we may assign the term “physical medium” to radio waves, which are some sort of an “asset” in the network society. Major functional media, characterizing sign processes in accordance with objectives and formats of massages, are “blogs”, “posts”, “chats”, and “forums”. The examples of codified media are digital nomads’ personal or corporate blogs, their local (regional) or global Internet forums. Being biological media themselves, digital nomads have very well developed visual, audial, and tactile receptors. Basic social media are real social spaces (cafes and libraries provided with Wi-Fi connection, co-working zones, stores specialized in selling “nomadic” items) as well as virtual social spaces (social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). The network society has a dual ontology – virtual reality and real virtuality. Computers and smartphones are the interfaces of two parallel worlds where they connect. Semiotic processes are at the same time the processes of socialization – or social communication – in those two worlds. Social media has a specific function. They organize all other types of media that are involved in producing signs (Posner 2004: 62). The Internet appears to be a “super-medium”. It is a semiosis – semiotic continuum, which is filled with multi-variant semiotic structures situated at a range of hierarchical levels (Lotman 2002). It is a super-system, which possesses a constellation of features that influence semiotic processes.
Mobility (real and/or virtual) and “constant plugging” to the Net constitute the core of the identity of digital nomads. Those are two basic characteristics. They form the very “subject matter” of digital nomadism and, at the same time, are the technological bases for producing all sign processes. They help identify representatives of the culture. Mobility and connectivity make the culture of digital nomads super-mobile and global. It expands both horizontally (inside the same social strata) and vertically (among strata). From the point of cultural semiotics, globalization of the culture of digital nomads is a progressing semiotization of reality segments by virtue of marking them with metaphorical signifiers that are key for the given culture.
5.2. Artifacts and “mentifacts” which constitute the culture of digital nomads
Artifacts are known to constitute the basis of material culture of the society or of its civilization. Mentifacts, along with conventions, constitute its mental culture and mentality (Posner 2004: 70). The dual ontology of the network society means duality of the onto-status of digital nomads’ civilization. It is not solely represented in reality by, for instance, various electronic devices, gadgets, and other “nomadic” items. It also exists virtually, that is in the forms of electronic (digital) artifacts – video and audio files, electronic documents, computer graphics, etc. Over a long period of time digital artifacts have been predominant over material and analog ones. That is why such term as “Digital Age” may be used to determine the modern epoch as an analogy to the terms “Iron Age” and “Bronze Age”. Mentifacts of the culture of digital nomads are ideas and values they follow in their every-day super-mobile lives. By “ideas” R. Posner means “all categories with which a society interprets itself and its reality” (Posner 2004: 70). From this point of view, they include not only digital nomads’ idea of independence from stationary workplaces, but also such categories as “mobile home”, “oases”, “virtual fires”, and others. The same metaphorical terms represent digital nomads’ cultural codes. This illustrates the following R. Posner’s statement: “Any mentality is to be understood as a set of codes” (Posner 2004: 70).
In Lotman’s broad concept of text, “every artifact with a function and a coded message can be regarded as a text” (Posner 2004: 72). The most important artifacts that provide digital nomads with their identity are mobile devices: cell phones, laptops, USB flash drives, charging devices, modulators. From this perspective, we witness self-genesis of texts in the culture of digital nomads: texts produce other texts. Therefore the question of the culture’s identity coincides with the question of the limits of its texts with its non-texts. Those limits are determined by the following opposites: “mobile – stationary”, “connected – unconnected”, “online – offline”, “wired – wireless”, “electronic – analogue”, “multifunctional – monofunctional”, “compact – massive”, “high-speed – low-speed”, “freelanced – office”. The first term of each pair is a category that determines characteristics of artifact texts. The second term of each pair determines non-text characteristic.
However, digital nomads’ artifacts and mentifacts, among other special features, are easily incorporated by other civilizations and mental cultures, including the most ancient and viable ones. For example, Muslims use the Qibla application in their cellphones, which helps to find the direction that should be faced when praying during salat. Catholics use an application that sends messages from the Pope. In these cases, the artifacts belong to different very strong and viable cultures and complement each other. When it comes to less viable cultures, such as youth or corporate ones, the culture of digital nomads causes anthropological changes of “tectonic” character that we mentioned in the previous part of the paper.
Therefore, the methods of cultural semiotics may be applied for analyzing the culture of digital nomads despite its specific nature. No doubt, this part of the paper does not claim to be exhaustive on semiotic-related issues of the culture of digital nomads. It represents our first attempts to reflect on the problem.
6. Conclusion
Interdisciplinary approach to studying the problem of the culture of digital nomads from the positions of ontology, anthropology, and semiotics is the most relevant because it allows studying it more profoundly. It also helps to anticipate the consequences of its further development and globalization.
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