Overview
Every day we share encounters with others as we inhabit the space around us. In offering insights and knowledge on this increasingly important topic, this book introduces a range of empirical and theoretical approaches to the study of shared encounters. It highlights the multifaceted nature of collective experience and provides a deeper understanding of the nature and value of shared encounters in everyday life.
Introduction
Divided into four sections, each section comprises a set of chapters on a different topic and is introduced by a key author in the field who provides an overview of the content. The book itself is introduced by Paul Dourish, who sets the theme of shared encounters in the context of technological and social change over the last fifteen years. The four sections that follow consider the characteristics of shared encounters and describe how they can be supported in different settings: the first section, introduced by Barry Brown, looks at shared experiences. George Roussos, in the second section, presents playful encounters. Malcolm McCullough introduces the section on spatial settings and, last but not least, Elizabeth Churchill previews the topic of social glue. The individual chapters that accompany each part offer particular perspectives on the main topic and provide detailed insights from the authorŐs own research background.
Audience
A valuable reference for anyone designing ubiquitous media, mobile social software and LBS applications, this volume will also be useful to researchers, students and practitioners in fields ranging from computer science to urban studies.
What is a Shared Encounter?
In sharing an experience individuals co-operate to enact a goal-oriented performance. This is very significant for our understanding of shared encounters since peoples behaviours are performed through a filter of an unspoken negotiation of social roles and terms of the situation in which the individuals find themselves. In addition the terms of the situation are not just socially constructed but are also framed by the physical setting of the interaction which acts as a stage.
We define a shared encounter as:the interaction between two people or within a group where a sense of performative co-presence is experienced and which is characterised by a mutual recognition of spatial or social proximity
Fundamental to this whole discussion is the concept of sharing, which extends a notion of an interaction to one that is experienced on some common level. This sees technology as affording a background to what is the most important interaction; that between one person and another.
