Governing the geocoded world: Environmentality and the politics of location platforms

Abstract

As location and the nearby environment become increasingly prominent for our communications, filtering flows of information and shaping our networks, geolocation technology and emergent forms of usage to govern information and visualize populations raise important questions as to how locative media could be used as tools of governmentality. Using Google’s location platform Places as a primary example, this article will argue that location platforms are underpinned by a geodemographical spatial ordering according to which subjects are located for the purpose of economic government. Particular attention is paid to the political economy of location platforms and the role of their underlying algorithms and databases in rendering social space subject to novel forms of commodification. Drawing on Foucault’s governmentality analytic framework, the article concludes by delineating a critical framework to assess the mentalities and strategies of government that the generalized geocoding of information is giving rise to.