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Conclusions
As particular machines that simulate time and space relations, simulation maps that enable one to locate, rationalize, prescribe, and hence govern the spatial patterns of consumerism and everyday life can be conceived of as documents both in and for action. In technological terms, while GIS and database technologies are both useful in finding markets, I would like to suggest that the ability to layer data in the form of a simulation (map) affords a particular diagnostic and hence governmental capacity—that is, a process that integrates variables in a forecasting mode or inquiry. For the commercial sector, this ‘‘layering’’ of data (in the form of a map) enables individuals and companies to locate future profitable sites and travel routes based in large part on their geographic proximity to (among other factors) markets, means of transportation, adequate energy sources, and trained ‘‘human resources.’’ In short, the visualizing of geographic data ‘‘anchors,’’ albeit in simulational terms, the movement of goods and services, thus providing coordinates from which one may plot such entrepreneurial strategies.Although I have taken some steps to distance the machinations of GIS mapping from database technologies—particularly in highlighting the manner in which the former draws on overwhelmingly empirical definitions and representations of topography—it is only by returning to the level of the everyday that we can begin to talk about the rationalization of the human topography. In other words, psychographic data on consumer behavior are accumulated by way of numerous ‘‘solicitations’’ of interactivity that are most explicitly manifest in the face-to-face questions posed by the market researcher but also less obviously (but increasingly and pervasively) present in the everyday performative duties required of commodity purchasing. The consumer therefore appears to be governed by a logic of representation that manifests itself in the exchange of personal information in return for (promised) financial rebate. The power of such marketing strategies and techniques thus lies in facilitating the process of consumption and ‘‘confession’’ all at once: research and sales become one in the same, informing each other’s rules, regulations, and practices.
Such practices are also manifested by their situation or placement in spatial patterns and routines. In this respect, one can literally trace the spatial patterns of a consumer’s behavior from the residual trail left behind by his or her purchases. David Lyon (1994, 52) thus rightly argues that there is a
tendency for surveillance systems increasingly to depend on their subjects to trigger their activity, by means of a trail of transactional information left behind as we make purchases of phone calls, submit claims, or state preferences.
Retracing these trails of data is not the only research function that gives GIS its unique power in the strategies of marketing. Rather, the layering of (e)motion engenders in topological terms a reflexive drive toward both mapping and prescribing particular markets in space. Although I have discussed the layering of motion in largely custodial terms (as the technological cycle of ‘‘cleaning dirt’’—for example, in GPS remote sensing), the layering of emotion (defined as behaviors, likes, dislikes—in short, lifestyle) on top of space provides the diagrammatic link to governing or prescribing the very routes and time-space paths that afford our everyday needs, wants, desires, and duties. Such attempts to map are not merely representational; they are an ongoing attempt to govern the topography of everyday lifestyles.
