Challenging peripherality through access to the internet? Socio-spatial practices of the connected rurban

Abstract

This paper investigates imbricated relationship between the socio-spatial organisation of marginalised rurban communities and the late appropriation of the internet in both Brazil and the UK. It focuses on the underlying forces that shape rurban communities’ everyday lives in the context of digital peripheralisation, understanding that, though embodied and imprinted in space, these are correlated to phenomena pertaining to different social levels–the global and the urban–as discussed by Henri Lefebvre. The study indicates a clear relation between socio-spatial-technological processes and the appropriation of internet, and suggests the need to consider those processes while discussing the so-called ‘digital divide’.