Socioplastics 11915 The Nearest Evidence Is Not the Whole Territory
Familiarity makes a place legible and can also make its exclusions less visible. ProximityBias names the disproportionate weight given to evidence that is near, repeatedly encountered or institutionally easy to reach. Researchers may study streets close to their offices; an arts organisation may recruit through its established networks; a municipal team may interpret mobility through routes its members use every day. Edward Relph’s account of place and placelessness highlights lived attachment and situated identity. David Seamon’s phenomenological descriptions of movement show how routines shape people’s experience of place. Their work helps distinguish familiarity as a valuable form of knowledge from familiarity as a limit on what researchers notice. Repeated encounters can deepen understanding while leaving other routes and experiences outside the field. A project could map the routes its team uses, the people it consults and the sites it visits. Researchers would compare that pattern with areas and groups missing from the record. Travel time, language, institutional contacts and accessibility could be logged as conditions shaping proximity. New routes and partnerships could then extend the inquiry, with a record of how evidence changes as the field expands. ProximityBias gives research teams a practical way to examine how location and routine shape their evidence. It can guide sampling, consultation and site selection by making access patterns explicit. The marker treats familiarity as a resource that requires reflection. A broader account emerges when investigators document what is near, what remains distant and how those distances affect their claims. This can lead to revised sampling plans and more deliberate partnerships with people and sites beyond established networks.
REFERENCES
Relph, E. (1976) Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.
Seamon, D. (1979) A Geography of the Lifeworld: Movement, Rest and Encounter. London: Croom Helm.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html