Telephone booths as places of integrations: Information and communication technologies in the construction of networks and identities

© Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. It's clear that the accelerated and massive implementation in contemporary societies of ICTs makes their role ever more relevant, not just as means of information access but especially insofar as the role they play in forming citizen integration and participation modes that have a glocal character. Hence, public ICT access spaces (cybercafés, libraries, telecenters, or public call centers (locutorios)) appear to be essential enclaves where one can investigate the social impact produced by these new technologies on subjects and collectives, as well as to analyze how users put them to use, particularly those ICTs aimed at the promotion and consolidation of social networks. This article first offers a review of the scientific-social literature focused on the principal public ICT access spaces. It treats the specific characteristics and means of the links and relationships frequent users, the immigrant population, establish in the public call center. As such, it is treated as a place-metaphor for migratory processes in a globalized world. The discussion defends the concept of association stations as an anthropological tool to help elucidate the characteristics of this spaces.