From being there to being aware: Confronting geographical and sociological imaginations of copresence

Abstract

In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that “geography matters”. The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between copresence and its (distant) geographical relatives has rarely been explicated in a systematic fashion. By drawing on the seminal contributions by Goffman, Giddens and Knorr Cetina, amongst others, this account confronts the geographical conceptions of colocation, proximity and distance with sociological perceptions of copresence. By advancing from copresence as “being there” to copresence as “being aware” we seek to push beyond the prevailing physical perceptions of copresence towards a more socially constructivist understanding that accounts for the simultaneity and mutual conditioning of diverse modes of copresence and absence.