Erika Polson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4428403 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Erika Polson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Erika |
| FAMILY NAME | Polson |
| SIGNATURE | POLSON E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Denver |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1056-7428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The ambient office: Remote work and the post-digital downtown
A global sense of work place? rethinking the (dis)locality of digital nomads
The growing ‘digital nomad’ movement flourishes amid concerns about the impacts of remote work on workplace culture. This ethnographic study combines a Massey-inspired perspective on space, place, and spatial divisions of labor with a geomedia lens to interpret digital nomad infrastructure as producing a ‘global sense of workplace’. By adopting this perspective, the nomadic lifestyle appears less as a radical departure by professionals from offic…
Street art in the Insta-city: Mobile audiences and urban placemaking
Street art murals (along with festivals and art districts) have proliferated in the past decade, becoming the “face” of creative cities through post-industrial urban regeneration strategies, and these efforts have been connected to gentrification in cities around the world. In this article, I consider how mobile audiences interact with street art through Instagram and propose that the “ Insta-city”—a coproduction involving art, photography, locat…
Where's the bathroom in this “mobile home”? Adding Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WaSH) infrastructure to agendas on homelessness and digital media
Although access to water and sanitation have been recognized by the United Nations as human rights since 2010, that access continues to be a site of struggle in everyday life, especially among homeless populations. In this paper, we draw from two summers of a fieldwork-based course on homelessness and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Denver, Colorado to consider whether a Google Map of public restrooms in the city might be useful for unhoused pe…
From the Tag to the #Hashtag: Street Art, Instagram, and Gentrification
One of the key trends that can be seen in gentrifying environments is the use of “street art” murals, which are increasingly connected to official government-sanctioned “street art festivals,” to decorate the walls of urban neighborhoods—sometimes located in officially designated “arts” or “creative districts.” In this article, I consider the role that Instagram practices have played in the popularization of such districts. In a case study of Den…
Exploring ‘digital placemaking’
This brief essay introduces the special issue on the topic of ‘digital placemaking’ – a concept describing the use of digital media to create a sense of place for oneself and/or others. As a broad framework that encompasses a variety of practices used to create emotional attachments to place through digital media use, digital placemaking can be examined across a variety of domains. The concept acknowledges that, at its core, a drive to create and…
Placemaking ‘experiences’ during Covid-19
This article explores the ways in which, during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, AirBnb’s successful place-based Experiences product was reimagined as a live online offering, marketed to would-be tourists living under ‘stay at home’ orders. Using online ethnographic and interpretive analysis of these new virtual experiences, we highlight a series of core placemaking strategies employed by hosts of the once in-situ experiences to show how …
Digital Placemaking
This panel introduces and critically examines the concept of "digital placemaking" as practices that create emotional attachments to place through digital media use. As populations and the texts they produce become increasingly mobile, such practices are proliferating, and a striking array of applications and uses have emerged which exploit the affordances of mobile media to foster an ability to navigate, understand, connect to, and gain a sense …
The Routledge Companion to Media and Class
Advancements in digital technologies have set the stage for corporations in the Global North to drive down their labor costs by outsourcing work to the Global South. Burdened by employment woes such as infrastructural immobility and low wages, countless Filipino professionals, one of the largest suppliers of digital labor globally, are found to be migrating to online platform labor in exchange for autonomy, spatial flexibility, and the possibilit…
Routledge Companion to Media and Class
Privileged Mobilities: Professional Migration, Geo-Social Media, and a New Global Middle Class
As corporations ramp up «workforce globalization» and young professionals increasingly pursue opportunities to work abroad, social entrepreneurs use online digital platforms to create offline social events where foreigners can meet face-to-face. Through ethnographic study of such groups in Paris, Singapore, and Bangalore, Erika Polson illustrates how, as a new generation of expatriates uses location technologies to create mobile «places,» a new g…
Negotiating independent mobility: Single female expats in Bangalore
Every major global human resources study over the past 5 years has noted a common trend: a dramatic increase in the number of women in the expatriate workforce, and increasingly these expats are single. Using ethnographic observations and interviews with female expats who moved alone to work in Bangalore – the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ – I discuss frictions faced as they negotiate a context where how to get around safely and comfortably in public…
Passing to India: A critique of American football’s expansion
Although India has long held a passion for cricket, an organization called the Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is looking to disrupt that sporting nerve center, and introduce the foreign sport of American football to the country’s growing middle class. While it is too soon to assess how Indian audiences will respond to, negotiate and perhaps create new cultural practices around American football, we focus this article on an analysis of effo…
A gateway to the global city: Mobile place-making practices by expats
Drawing from ethnographic research of expatriates who use meetup.com and similar digitally based social organizing platforms to access events in Paris, this paper explores how on- and offline meet-up rhetoric and routines contribute to the production of a mobile “sense of place” for people who have relocated or traveled alone. By highlighting how participants may use digital media to create a sense of belonging to an “international community” ext…
Limits of National Discourse on a Transnational Phenomenon: A Case Study of Immigration Framing in the BBC Online
Although global migration is a complex transnational issue, media and policy discussions in wealthy regions often isolate immigration discourse within national frameworks. Using a Special Report on the BBC Online as a case study (and a ‘best case’ example of immigration reporting), this article illustrates the problems that are masked by ‘objective’ language used within the realm of national identity, and calls for media and policy researchers de…
A gateway to the global city: Mobile place-making practices by expats
Drawing from ethnographic research of expatriates who use meetup.com and similar digitally based social organizing platforms to access events in Paris, this paper explores how on- and offline meet-up rhetoric and routines contribute to the production of a mobile “sense of place” for people who have relocated or traveled alone. By highlighting how participants may use digital media to create a sense of belonging to an “international community” ext…
From the Tag to the #Hashtag: Street Art, Instagram, and Gentrification
One of the key trends that can be seen in gentrifying environments is the use of “street art” murals, which are increasingly connected to official government-sanctioned “street art festivals,” to decorate the walls of urban neighborhoods—sometimes located in officially designated “arts” or “creative districts.” In this article, I consider the role that Instagram practices have played in the popularization of such districts. In a case study of Den…
Limits of National Discourse on a Transnational Phenomenon: A Case Study of Immigration Framing in the BBC Online
Although global migration is a complex transnational issue, media and policy discussions in wealthy regions often isolate immigration discourse within national frameworks. Using a Special Report on the BBC Online as a case study (and a ‘best case’ example of immigration reporting), this article illustrates the problems that are masked by ‘objective’ language used within the realm of national identity, and calls for media and policy researchers de…
Negotiating independent mobility: Single female expats in Bangalore
Every major global human resources study over the past 5 years has noted a common trend: a dramatic increase in the number of women in the expatriate workforce, and increasingly these expats are single. Using ethnographic observations and interviews with female expats who moved alone to work in Bangalore – the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ – I discuss frictions faced as they negotiate a context where how to get around safely and comfortably in public…
Where's the bathroom in this “mobile home”? Adding Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WaSH) infrastructure to agendas on homelessness and digital media
Although access to water and sanitation have been recognized by the United Nations as human rights since 2010, that access continues to be a site of struggle in everyday life, especially among homeless populations. In this paper, we draw from two summers of a fieldwork-based course on homelessness and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Denver, Colorado to consider whether a Google Map of public restrooms in the city might be useful for unhoused pe…
Passing to India: A critique of American football’s expansion
Although India has long held a passion for cricket, an organization called the Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is looking to disrupt that sporting nerve center, and introduce the foreign sport of American football to the country’s growing middle class. While it is too soon to assess how Indian audiences will respond to, negotiate and perhaps create new cultural practices around American football, we focus this article on an analysis of effo…
Limits of National Discourse on a Transnational Phenomenon: A Case Study of Immigration Framing in the BBC Online
Although global migration is a complex transnational issue, media and policy discussions in wealthy regions often isolate immigration discourse within national frameworks. Using a Special Report on the BBC Online as a case study (and a ‘best case’ example of immigration reporting), this article illustrates the problems that are masked by ‘objective’ language used within the realm of national identity, and calls for media and policy researchers de…
A gateway to the global city: Mobile place-making practices by expats
Drawing from ethnographic research of expatriates who use meetup.com and similar digitally based social organizing platforms to access events in Paris, this paper explores how on- and offline meet-up rhetoric and routines contribute to the production of a mobile “sense of place” for people who have relocated or traveled alone. By highlighting how participants may use digital media to create a sense of belonging to an “international community” ext…
Passing to India: A critique of American football’s expansion
Although India has long held a passion for cricket, an organization called the Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is looking to disrupt that sporting nerve center, and introduce the foreign sport of American football to the country’s growing middle class. While it is too soon to assess how Indian audiences will respond to, negotiate and perhaps create new cultural practices around American football, we focus this article on an analysis of effo…
Privileged Mobilities: Professional Migration, Geo-Social Media, and a New Global Middle Class
As corporations ramp up «workforce globalization» and young professionals increasingly pursue opportunities to work abroad, social entrepreneurs use online digital platforms to create offline social events where foreigners can meet face-to-face. Through ethnographic study of such groups in Paris, Singapore, and Bangalore, Erika Polson illustrates how, as a new generation of expatriates uses location technologies to create mobile «places,» a new g…
Negotiating independent mobility: Single female expats in Bangalore
Every major global human resources study over the past 5 years has noted a common trend: a dramatic increase in the number of women in the expatriate workforce, and increasingly these expats are single. Using ethnographic observations and interviews with female expats who moved alone to work in Bangalore – the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ – I discuss frictions faced as they negotiate a context where how to get around safely and comfortably in public…
The Routledge Companion to Media and Class
Advancements in digital technologies have set the stage for corporations in the Global North to drive down their labor costs by outsourcing work to the Global South. Burdened by employment woes such as infrastructural immobility and low wages, countless Filipino professionals, one of the largest suppliers of digital labor globally, are found to be migrating to online platform labor in exchange for autonomy, spatial flexibility, and the possibilit…
Routledge Companion to Media and Class
Digital Placemaking
This panel introduces and critically examines the concept of "digital placemaking" as practices that create emotional attachments to place through digital media use. As populations and the texts they produce become increasingly mobile, such practices are proliferating, and a striking array of applications and uses have emerged which exploit the affordances of mobile media to foster an ability to navigate, understand, connect to, and gain a sense …
Exploring ‘digital placemaking’
This brief essay introduces the special issue on the topic of ‘digital placemaking’ – a concept describing the use of digital media to create a sense of place for oneself and/or others. As a broad framework that encompasses a variety of practices used to create emotional attachments to place through digital media use, digital placemaking can be examined across a variety of domains. The concept acknowledges that, at its core, a drive to create and…
Placemaking ‘experiences’ during Covid-19
This article explores the ways in which, during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, AirBnb’s successful place-based Experiences product was reimagined as a live online offering, marketed to would-be tourists living under ‘stay at home’ orders. Using online ethnographic and interpretive analysis of these new virtual experiences, we highlight a series of core placemaking strategies employed by hosts of the once in-situ experiences to show how …
From the Tag to the #Hashtag: Street Art, Instagram, and Gentrification
One of the key trends that can be seen in gentrifying environments is the use of “street art” murals, which are increasingly connected to official government-sanctioned “street art festivals,” to decorate the walls of urban neighborhoods—sometimes located in officially designated “arts” or “creative districts.” In this article, I consider the role that Instagram practices have played in the popularization of such districts. In a case study of Den…
Where's the bathroom in this “mobile home”? Adding Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WaSH) infrastructure to agendas on homelessness and digital media
Although access to water and sanitation have been recognized by the United Nations as human rights since 2010, that access continues to be a site of struggle in everyday life, especially among homeless populations. In this paper, we draw from two summers of a fieldwork-based course on homelessness and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Denver, Colorado to consider whether a Google Map of public restrooms in the city might be useful for unhoused pe…
The ambient office: Remote work and the post-digital downtown
A global sense of work place? rethinking the (dis)locality of digital nomads
The growing ‘digital nomad’ movement flourishes amid concerns about the impacts of remote work on workplace culture. This ethnographic study combines a Massey-inspired perspective on space, place, and spatial divisions of labor with a geomedia lens to interpret digital nomad infrastructure as producing a ‘global sense of workplace’. By adopting this perspective, the nomadic lifestyle appears less as a radical departure by professionals from offic…
Street art in the Insta-city: Mobile audiences and urban placemaking
Street art murals (along with festivals and art districts) have proliferated in the past decade, becoming the “face” of creative cities through post-industrial urban regeneration strategies, and these efforts have been connected to gentrification in cities around the world. In this article, I consider how mobile audiences interact with street art through Instagram and propose that the “ Insta-city”—a coproduction involving art, photography, locat…
Sociology (13 works) · Social science (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Social media (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity (4 works)