Placemaking and place identity in social media

Snapshots from Facebook

Mariza Georgalou
Department of Linguistics & English Language
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK
m.georgalou@gmail.com

Abstract. There is more to place on the social network first questions in my interviewi with Helen dealt with
site of Facebook than its software configurations that her location while posting. She stated that:
allow seamless location sharing and tracking. Users do
i was here most of the time
much more complex linguistic and multimodal work to but some posts were made when I was in Hungary
give meaning to specific places foregrounding them as and if I wrote some posts in September then I was in England
geographical but also as social, political, cultural, and but mainly I was here and I participated in what was happening
emotional entities. This paper draws on insights from hm.. even if I’m not in Greece I write posts on issues related to
discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, semiotics, and the situation here
moreover, on the other hand, when I’m in Greece I write posts
online ethnography to explore the ways in which two
that concern the UK
Greek female Facebook participants talk about and for example, when the fees increased in UK universities i was in
represent places in their postings. The analysis shows Greece and I was very worried about this issue, as far as I can
that, by means of the place, the users communicate remember from my profile
something about themselves: they confirm belonging, or other issues related to UK universities
they communicate respect to other cultures, they use but when the big demonstrations were held and I wrote some
[status] updates I was here
different languages to affiliate with certain places, they I also posted some photos
make political statements, they disidentify with the I shot them the day after the demonstrations [...]
stressful aspects of a place in crisis, and they raise sometimes I write posts that concern Hungary even if I’m not
awareness about local and national issues. there
oh, this identity is too complicated.. a mess!
Keywords: place identity; social media; Facebook;
discourse analysis, semiotics; online ethnography Helen acknowledges the complication of her place
identity by jokingly characterising it ‘a mess’. Having
Greeceii as the location of her immediate proximity
I. FACEBOOK AND MULTIPLY-PLACED IDENTITIES (here), her place posts revolve around the three
Who we are is entwined with where we are, where countries: Greece, UK and Hungary. Helen feels
we have been, or where we are going [2]. Web entitled to comment on her Facebook on issues about
technologies have marked a fundamental shift in the the Greek crisis wherever she is, because she still has a
ways we perceive and experience place. In the social legitimate interest in Greece when she is in the UK.
media ecosystem of Facebook, the practice of writing Time and again, in these posts, she draws on English
and uploading other multimedia material is a self- language resources as illustrated in Fig. 1. But she also
reflexive process which is not situated in a particular has a special entitlement to speak from experience on
location; it can exist anywhere, allowing the en route these matters: when she is in Greece, she takes part in
construction of a hybrid place identity as mobile, demonstrations and then uploads relevant material on
shifting. Consider the case of my research informant, Facebook, as we will see later on.
Helen, who experiences a triple spatial reality: She lives With posts like this in Fig. 1, Helen navigates
and works in Athens; she has stayed for seven years in multiple places simultaneously: the one she is physi-
the UK while she has been serving as a visiting English cally located in, the one she is thinking of as well as
for Academic Purposes tutor in British universities for Facebook space itself. Facebook is brought into the
two months per year since 2010; her partner is places Helen occupies, and, likewise, those places are
Hungarian and lives in Budapest. While observing her brought into Facebook. This ability to navigate multiple
profile, I noticed that in several instances it was difficult places at the same time is in effect ‘the ability to
for me to decipher in which of the three places (UK,
Greece, Hungary) she was located at the time of posting i
on Facebook. During 2011, the bulk of Helen’s posts The interviews were originally conducted in Greek.
ii
were related to the Greek crisis. Hence, one of my very I interviewed Helen via instant messaging. We were both located in
Athens at the time of the interview (29 October 2011).
consolidate and locate the spaces and information that have a strong bond with the places where we were born
we associate with our “digital selves” into something of and grew up, where we live, or where we experience
a hybrid space’ [14]. In these hybrid spaces, the borders particular stirring moments. Humanist geographers see
between remote and contiguous contexts, be that Greek, this bond as a starting point from which we can orient
English or Hungarian, can no longer be clearly defined ourselves to the world [32]. By the same token,
[9]. Bringing thus these contexts together in Facebook is environmental psychologists duly acknowledge that
not messy (as Helen says) — there are just many theres ‘who we are’ is intimately related to ‘where we are’,
there [11]. arguing that identity is not only shaped by place, but we
ourselves may also serve as contextual markers for
shaping place identities [10] [34]. Reference [31] views
place identity as consisting of cognitions about the
physical world in which we are located. These
cognitions represent an assortment of memories,
conceptions, interpretations, ideas, attitudes, values,
beliefs, social meanings, preferences and feelings about
specific physical settings. Put it plainly, place identity
refers to the ways in which we understand ourselves by
attributing meanings to places. As such, it should not be
Fig. 1. Using English sources for the Greek crisis. understood as a separate part of identity related to place,
since all aspects of identity often contain significant
In this light, the matters that will be addressed in the references to place or incorporate locations or
present paper are the following: How do Facebook users trajectories as crucial constituents [5] [40].
refer to places? Where are these references tied up to For sociolinguists and discourse analysts, a place
places? What do they imply or infer about place acquires its meanings by the ways it is represented, i.e.
identities in these references? The paper is organised as written, talked about, and photographed, as well as by
follows. After defining place, I briefly discuss its the situated interactions that ‘take place’ within it [29]
relation to identity as well as the role of language as a [37]. Language can form and transform our everyday
kind of glue that keeps together people and places. experiences of ‘self-in-place’ [19] [39] so that places are
Next, I present my data and methods of analysis. The constructed in ways that carry profound implications for
remainder of the paper investigates instances of locating who we are, who we can claim to be [10] or where we
the self textually and visually, geographically and socio- belong [36]. Through this spectrum, language should
politically in a variety of posts and comments. I close by not be seen as a mere means to represent or describe
drawing both specific and general conclusions. external environments. It is also a symbolic resource
through which constructions of place can do the
II. PLACE, IDENTITY, AND LANGUAGE rhetorical work of claiming an identity [30].
Place is not just a position in space; it is the location
plus everything that occupies that location, i.e. tasks, III. DATA AND METHODS
practices, routines, everyday life, seen as an integrated For the purposes of this study, I draw on findings
and meaningful phenomenon [29] [32]. Places are from a larger discourse-centred online ethnographic
classified into three basic types: personal and project on the construction of identities on Facebook,
interpersonal, social, and geographical [41]. Personal conducted during 2010-2013 [12]. Discourse-centred
and interpersonal places deal with where we are now (in online ethnography [1] combines the systematic,
the sense of where our bodies are now) as well as our longitudinal and repeated observation of online
interlocutors, in other words a space that organises our discourse (Facebook profiles here) with direct
interaction, perspective and discourse. Social places, on engagement (face-to-face and/or mediated) with the
the other hand, locate our activities in everyday life, at producers of this online discourse (Facebook profile
home, at work, and during leisure time, and hence are owners here) and is complementary to the textual
usually defined in terms of what people do in these analysis of online data. My participants were recruited
places – many of which are institutional. Examples in via convenience sampling (i.e. they were friends of
this category comprise outdoor places, residential friends). Initially, they were sent a message in which I
places, commercial places, commercial service places, explained the purposes of my study asking them to fill
community service places, government agencies, in an online questionnaire, which helped me to
educational places, leisure places, and workplaces. formulate an idea on how they experience the
Ultimately, the third kind of place, although called mechanics of social media. Following this, they were
geographical, in essence embraces social, political and invited to have their Facebook profiles painstakingly
cultural dimensions. These places can be represented by observed and to participate in a series of semi-structured
their scope, range, size or level, and are progressively online interviews via email, instant messaging and/or
inclusive, for example: home, street, neighbourhood, Facebook messages. My dataset included Facebook
city, state, province, country, region, continent, world, profile information, status updates, comments, video
and so on. and article links, photos my informants have taken
French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) themselves or have found elsewhere in the internet,
propounded the idea that individuals are not distinct interview excerpts, field notes as well my informants’
from their place – they are that place [32]. All of us comments on drafts of my analysis. My interviewees
were asked to sign a consent form in which they were marking but to the fact that she is in her partner’s home
assured that their material would remain confidential city with him. Two things are observed in this status.
and would be used for academic purposes solely. First, Helen, beyond just defining where she is, she
Concerning the use of third-party comments in the discloses how she feels while being in the specific place
study, I either asked for their posters’ permission or too. Second, Budapest triggers certain emotions in her
asked my subjects to do so on my behalf. Throughout ongoing activities, marking exams in this case.
my dataset I have preserved pseudonymity for my Saying where you are going can be done in more
informants and anonymity for other Facebook users. inventive ways as shown in Fig. 3. Helen adopts an
The data I have selected to present and discuss in entextualising process [5] [22], namely she extracts an
this paper come from two of my five in total informants, instance of culture (the song First We Take Manhattan,
Helen and Carla. Table I offers a rough idea about their which includes the lyric ‘First we take Manhattan, then
demographics. we take Berlin’) and relocates it in her discourse as ‘first
we take Budapest’ (where she will meet her partner) and
TABLE I. PARTICIPANTS’ DEMOGRAPHICS ‘and then we take Berlin’ (where she will head
Participants Demographics
afterwards for a conference presentation) to adjust it to
born in 1979; holds a BA in English Language
her own situation and give us a flavour of her itinerary.
and Literature, an MA in English Language and
Helen Literary Studies, and a PhD in Linguistics; works
as an Assistant Professor of Linguistics; lives in
Athens, Greece, and in UK for 2 months / year.
born in 1975; holds a BA in Translation and
Interpreting; works as a translator of Latin
Carla American literature; maintains two Facebook
profiles, one personal and one professional; lives
in Athens, Greece.

IV. PLACEMAKING ON FACEBOOK

Fig. 3. Entextualising a song to locate the self.
I will now turn to examples in which these two
users, other than exploiting Facebook affordances,iii B. Representational Locating of Self
localise their posts by making both direct and indirect
references to particular places. The discussion will pivot Though text is sufficient to give a location, it is not
around the following themes: verbal check-ins, the only mode that is used on Facebook. Uploading
representational locating of self, culinary experiences profile pictures with landscapes and cityscapes in the
and placemaking, and socio-political aspects of places. background has specific resonance for identity claims as
well. It serves as a performative exercise of identity and
belonging, which documents and validates the subjects’
A. Verbal Check-ins experience of being at particular places experiencing
Users specify where they are, where they are particular moments [27] [38]. Our own bodies give and
heading towards or where they are departing from, give off their meanings because of where they are and
namely where their bodies are, at the moment of writing what they do ‘in place’ [13] [35]. In this line of
the status update. With this type of contextual relevance reasoning, this type of photographic posing constitutes a
of place, users organise their perspective and orient kind of placement action which indicates and locates the
readers [41]. Fig. 2 offers a brief insight. self [18]. The next examples will illustrate this point.
Carla in her professional profile is pictured
surrounded by the sea of Havana, Cuba, in a medium
long shot (Fig. 4) while Helen (Fig. 5) appears to enjoy
the Hungarian countryside as a biker.

Fig. 2. Verbal check-in.

Here there is a reference to a social place, and

particularly a commercial service place, a café, and a
geographical place, the city of Budapest. Helen,
however, is located at the café not only for the typical
activity of drinking coffee but also for working. That the
formulation of this place is littered with feelings of
euphoria and optimism (in a good mood!) is not due to Fig. 4. Carla’s profile pic (11 January 2011).

iii
A discussion of how the users exploit specific Facebook
affordances (e.g. automatic check in, mapping, liking pages) to
indicate places falls outside the remit of this paper.
 gesture (which others will often follow) and, second, as a
representation (or record) of the space and one’s place in it. This
representational locating of Self can be explicit (i.e. when posed in
front of the camera) or implied (i.e. when taking the image) [18].

On the other hand, she constructs herself not solely

as a voracious traveller but also as a sharp-eyed
photographer. If one browses photographs in her
albums, s/he will instantly notice that from a technical
perspective she is highly competent in taking
photographs with a deep aesthetic appreciation of what
is characteristic of a place.
Fig. 5. Helen’s profile pic (23 August 2011).

Fig. 4 and 5 were taken during holidays. Tourism C. Culinary Experiences and Placemaking
provides a strong impetus for identity construal as the Social media, and principally Facebook, Flickr and
processes of travelling and narrating – textually and Instagram, have played an instrumental role in the
visually – holiday stories enable people to think of and explosion of interest in food, and food photography
present themselves as specific types of person [8] [25]. more specifically [33]. Apart from a biological need,
The practice of posting tourist profile pics, albeit trite at food is robustly interlaced with place within the
first blush [4], forms a process of selective geographic imagination and has become central to our
representation of lived bodily experience in place. Amid lived worlds and thereby our sense of identity [3] [21].
an array of photos, users choose to identify themselves
‘Foods do not simply come from places, organically
with one depicting a place that matters – it is not just
sightseeing. Carla is tied to Cuba professionally, as she growing out of them, but also make places as symbolic
has translated several books of Cuban literature, constructs, being deployed in the discursive
whereas Helen is tied to Hungary emotionally because construction of various imaginative geographies’ [7].
of her partner. Building upon this argument, place can be viewed as
I now shift my focus from profile pictures to place- both signifier and signified, namely as ‘a site at which
themed photographic albums. Carla has created albums food consumption may take place’ as well as ‘a
with photographs of the places she has visited both in contingent and potentially contested set of meanings
Greece and abroad, with Athens, Cuba and France that may themselves be consumed through those
(where Carla’s sister lives) taking centre stage. One of practices associated with food’ [23]. To explicate these
the most challenging aspects in this social networking points, I will provide three examples: the first relates to
activity is Carla’s journalistic kind of writing in local cuisine, as an inextricable part of people’s
choosing witty intertextual titles to name her photo collective national consciousness; the second pertains to
albums. In Table II (next page), I have gathered some of culinary tourism, as an opportunity to ‘taste’ the Other
her albums together with the sources to which their [28]; and the third is concerned with food as a displaced
titles pay dues. As can be seen, neither does Carla symbol of home.
present the places in purely visual terms (i.e. through Fig. 6 is a photo that Helen shot and then posted on
photos) nor in purely verbal terms (i.e. through titles her Timeline. It depicts a traditional Greek dish she
and captions) but takes up a multisemiotic combination. made herself, called gemista (stuffed vegetables). The
Her heteroglossic (English, French, Greek and Spanish)
comments, in Fig. 7, produced by some of her
and multilayered blending of song lyrics, poetry verses,
film titles and lines with place images in one international friends (I have indicated their nationality
multisemiotically complex product points to a for ease of reference) underneath the picture set in
cornucopia of ideas, feelings, memories and trains of motion a series of place identities confirming that places
thought attached to the particular locations. This use of are also interactionally construed by dint of past
indexicality, on the one hand, puts on display Carla’s experiences and socio-cultural knowledge [41].
linguistic and cultural capital [6], while, on the other, it
offers her audience the potential of playful engagement.
For example, one has to click on the album ‘panic in the
streets of’ to decipher that the photos are indeed taken in
London. By leaving the lyric ‘panic in the streets of’
unfinished, it is as if Carla invites viewers to reconstruct
the place themselves.
The identity work done by Carla in taking these
photos and then creating, editing and sharing albums
including them is twofold. On the one hand, she locates
herself implicitly:
[T]he camera function[s] as extension of the body [26] enabling a
kind of double location of Self: first, as a prosthetic pointing Fig. 6. Helen’s gemista.
TABLE II. PHOTO ALBUMS AND INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES

Album thumbnail Places depicted Title of album Intertextual link

Athens
city sickness II Song title by Tinderstics
(Greece)

-Habana (Cuba)
looking for a girl in a washing Song title by
-Barcelona (Spain)
machine? The Big Sleep
-Corfu (Greece)

Paris à paris (banlieue) tombe la Tombe la neige à Paris is a

(France) neige_janvier 2013 song performed by Adamo

Lisbon Lisbon Story is the title of a

Lisbon stories
(Portugal) film directed by W. Wenders

London Panic in the streets of London

panic in the streets of
(UK) is a song title by The Smiths

Habana Title of a Spanish-Cuban film

Habana Blues
(Cuba) directed by B. Zambrano

ο ουρανός είναι εφτά φορές

Monemvasia γαλάζιος Verse by Greek poet Yannis
(Greece) (transl.: the sky is seven times Ritsos
light blue)

Paris
We ll always have Paris Line from the film Casablanca
(France)
 andd the accompanying comments provide a sense of
continuity to Helen’s past (comment 14: I used to
buy stuff from Booths ages ago, when I lived liv in
Hala4), present (comment 15: 15 For now, I’m OK with
fresh Greek vegetables:-)) )) and future place selves
and actionss (comment 11: will do that next time I'm
inn Lancaster, thanks!; comment 15:
15 Next time I'll try
the market/single step and see how that goes).
Having touched upon tourism in the previous
section, I will now move on to discuss culinary
experiences as a form of tourist practice. Culinary
tourism has been described as the intersection
between food and travel, and refers to the practice of
exploratory eating as a way to encounter, know, and
consume other places and cultures, experiencing thus
new ways of being [24] [28]. [28] In this light, food
functions as a transportable symbol of place, a
moveable sign of Otherness [28]. In Fig. 8, included
in an album with photos from Katowice and Krakow
in Poland, Helen is holding – as if she is serving the
viewer – a Zapiekanka,
ekanka, a popular type of Polish
street food. Having a photo album under the name of
the place and including food pictures of this place,
Helen recirculates an imagined geography that
differentiates places on the basis of their cuisines
[28]. In the captionn of the photo, she writes:
Zapiekanka..miam!!!
miam!!! (Zapiekanka yummy!!!). But
she is not only eating Zapiekanka – she is also eating
‘the differences mobilities make’ [28]. What Helen
exhibits here is openness and desire to consume
difference as well as competence
tence in the other culture.
By posting this photo on Facebook, she almost
literally puts on display these qualities of hers.

Fig. 7. Interaction underneath gemista photo.

photo

What is worth discussing here is the evocation of

the inclusive ‘we’ via which the Iranian friend
(comments 4 and 6) and the Greek friend (comment
5) speak for the culinary traditions of their countries
seeing food standing in a metonymic relationship for
their
eir whole nations, the Iranian and the Greek
respectively. Helen, on the other hand, deploys a Fig. 8. Polish Zapiekanka.
Zapiekanka
different kind of ‘we’ in comment 7. Taking into
account that all of the participants in this thread have Foods should not only be viewed as placed
been or are still UK residents, this ‘we
we’ comprises all cultural artefacts, but as displaced materials and
those who come from different cultural and culinary practices as well,
l, which can inhabit many places [7].
backgrounds than the UK and find it difficult to Consider Fig. 9.. While being in the UK (one can see
prepare their local dishes there because the the British buildings in the background, emphasising
ingredients differ in taste (comment 7) or good ones the out-of-placeness),
placeness), Helen noticed and shot a tin of
are scarce
arce to find (comments 11 and 13), 13 Greek olives used as plant pot (the tin reads:
constructing thus
us the UK as a rather hostile place for εκλεκτές ελιές εξαιρετικής ποιότητος – selected
gastronomy. In this fashion, Helen disidentifies olives superior quality). For Helen, the Greekness of
herself with the UK. the olives, as represented in their packaging, is no
The foregoing example is indicative of what longer ordinary and mundane because it is embedded
makes Facebook so special as a site for place
4
identities. The mere uploading of a local food photo Hala is a Lancaster area. Single Step is a local wholefood co-op
co
in Lancaster.
into another, fresh context and therefore stands out, underneath them a poster that promotes tourism in
deserving to be captured and shared as a symbol of Greece. At any moment in time these three signs
home. In this example, Helen manifests a dual kind would compose a transgressive semiotic system.
of geographical knowledge [7]: first, knowledge of Nonetheless, because of the socio-political situation
the origins of the olives; and second, knowledge of in Greece, this triptych functions on a symbolic level:
the meanings of place, and regional identity, evoked Greece (the land, its people) is available for sale to or
amongst her Facebook audience who will look at this to be rented by its creditors. In Fig. 13, which reads
photo (and perhaps smile), especially the Greek ΜΕΝΟΥΜΕ ΣΥΝΤΑΓΜΑ (We stay at Syntagma),
members. the place, Syntagma Square, is represented as a
symbol of resistance placed within the same
contextual conditions as in the ‘off to syntagma’
status above.
By recording the place in crisis, Helen
simultaneously represents her place in it. Since she is
the one taking the images, which are powerful tokens
of citizen journalism, and not posing in front of the
camera, her representational locating of self is
implied [18]. Her identity claim is ‘I’m there, at the
heart of the events, protesting and documenting’.

Fig. 9. Greek olives tin in the UK.

D. Socio-political Aspects of Places

Physical environments are necessarily social
environments [17]. Economic, political, and social
upheavals such as unemployment, governmental
instability, intergroup conflicts, and other sources of
frustration can have a corrosive effect upon one’s
place identity [31]. The following examples tackle
this matter with regard to the Greek crisis. Fig. 10. Syntagma Square (posted on 30 May 2011).

I. Protesting and Documenting

Harking back to Helen’s interview in the
introduction, she says about the demonstrations in
Athens that ‘I was here and I participated in what
was happening’. Indeed, she was an active and
conscious citizen both physically and digitally. For
instance, in heading to Athens Syntagma Square to
protest against austerity together with the Greek
Indignant Citizens (Aganaktismeni) in June 2011,
she wrote on Facebook: ‘off to syntagma’. Such a
status update should not be viewed as a mere check-
in but as a discursive practice embedded in a broader
socio-political and historical context.
The same goes for the uploading of photographs Fig. 11. Stadiou Street (posted on 6 May 2010).
she had taken herself of the places where events
related to the protests took place. In Fig. 10, we see
Syntagma Square, outside the Greek parliament,
while Fig. 11 is shot outside Marfin Bank in Stadiou
Street, Athens, where three employees died during
the nation-wide strike on 5 May 2010. Fig. 12 is an
instance of transgressive semiotics, namely when a
sign violates either intentionally or accidentally the
conventional semiotics at that place [35]. The photo
depicts an empty Athenian store, probably one of the
hundreds that have closed down on account of the
crisis, with two labels on its window, ΠΩΛΕΙΤΑΙ
(for sale) and ΕΝΟΙΚΙΑΖΕΤΑΙ (to rent), and Fig. 12. Empty store in Athens (posted on 23 October 2011).
 from Greece is even more accentuated by choosing
English as the language of her status.
One day before the new elections, on 16 June
2012, Helen’s status included just one coined word:
‘surrealand’. Her Greek contacts as well as those
who keep in touch with the proceedings in Greece
can easily deduce that the surrealand is Greece. The
coined term bears the connotations of absence of
rationality, co-ordination and planning in the country
which Helen implicitly condemns.
Fig. 13. Flyer in Syntagma Square (posted on 18 October 2012).

II. Responding to ‘unattractive’ places V. CONCLUDING REMARKS

It goes without saying that under the crisis We are the product of the routes we have traversed
circumstances, places become ‘unattractive’ causing [15]. In this networked era, Facebook could very
stress to people, who in turn feel displaced, and as a well be seen as a versatile inventory of our routes as
consequence their discourses about these places those are inscribed in check-ins, updates, and
become deterritorialised too acquiring an irritated photographs. Along these lines, the argument that
style [5] [41]. Here is a simple example: web and mobile technologies utterly disconnect us
from physical spaces is emasculated [14].
What the analysis brought to the fore is that place
identity can have several components and overlapping
layers, be that geographical, social, political, cultural,
emotional. With Facebook, users can bring together
these components and layers from virtually anywhere.
The findings provide valuable insights into the nature
of place identity as unfurled in Facebook. To
Fig. 14. Polarising aspects of place identity. commence with, place identity is different for
different users. For Helen especially, place seems to
By polarising the unstable political situation in be at the core of her identity. The following extract is
Greece, which distresses Greek people, with the from our interview after my initial observation of her
sunshine that typically lifts their spirits, Helen Facebook activity.
polarises two aspects of her place identity. On the
Mariza: what has struck me most is your place identity
one hand, it is the socio-political place to which she Helen: well, indeed. now you’re saying it…
does not feel attached because of its governors. On I knew it to a certain degree, but it impresses me that it comes
the other hand, by referring to the two toponyms, the across so strongly to someone else
two Athenian neighbourhoods Exarcheia and
Monastiraki, she mobilises a kind of intimacy Not only does it come across so strongly, to
associated with the activities of strolling in borrow Helen’s words, but also we witnessed how
pedestrian streets and sitting at outdoor cafés, references to places in her posts endowed her with a
meaningful only to Athenians. sense of continuity to her identity.
In the next two examples, without mentioning Moreover, users identify with different scales or
any place names at all, Helen renounces her types of places [20] from micro (e.g. a café) to macro
(e.g. Budapest) and from specific (e.g. Syntagma
identification with Greece:
Square) to general (e.g. Hungarian countryside). The
analysis also suggested that place identity differs with

have stayed too long in this country... (status posted on 25
May 2012 at 20:22 and liked by 2 people) respect to our role in given places. It is one thing to be

surrealand (status posted on 16 June 2012 at 12:43) a traveller in Cuba (Carla) and another to be a
protester in Syntagma (Helen). Another important
The frustration-littered update in the first finding is that place identity is associated with
example is unpacked if we take into account that it different representations of personal meanings (e.g.
was posted just after the May 2012 elections in marking at a café in Budapest) as well as socio-
Greece and the failure of political parties to form a political meanings (e.g. Greece as surrealand).
new government as none of them had won an Furthermore, it is associated with different types of
discursive means (e.g. place naming, inclusive we,
absolute majority of parliamentary seats. While in
distancing deixis, metonymy, insinuation, intertextual
the interview excerpt in the beginning of the paper
links, artistic photography, protest photography, food
Helen deployed the spatial adverb ‘here’ to designate photography).
Greece, in this status update she displaces and Place identity on Facebook is found to have two
distances herself by selecting the demonstrative ‘this intrinsic values. First, it is fluid, often divorced from
country’ which in this context has a pejorative where the body is physically located. Strictly
nuance seen as attitudinal dissociation and speaking, the body is situated together with a portable
depersonalisation from the place. Her estrangement device and posts on Facebook. As shown, however,
Helen is in England but thinks and posts about the [15] S. Hall, “Cultural identity and diaspora”. In Identity,
demonstrations in Athens. Community, Culture, Difference, J. Rutherford, Ed. London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1990, pp. 222-237.
Second, place identity is an essentially interactive,
[16] L. Humphreys and T. Liao, “Mobile geotagging:
collaborative task, constructed through processes of Reexamining our interactions with urban space”. Journal of
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Facebook audience. Participants work together on 423.
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