Techno-socio-spatial entanglements: Digital technologies,island geographies and domestic violence

Digital geographies

Geographers’ advancement of a relational approach to the digital is now commonly utilized (Cockayne and Richardson, 2020; Elwood, 2020; Elwood and Leszyzynski, 2018; Maalsen, 2024; Richardson, 2018). Here we focus on two binaries that geographers have worked to disrupt and which have implications for our study of TECC in island communities: understanding experiences of digital technologies across virtual/real space and examining the oppressive/emancipatory effects of digital technologies.

While initial digital geographies positioned the “virtual” as distinct from “real” space (see review in, e.g., Kinsley, 2014), contemporary research largely advances their entangled and interwoven relationship. As Maalsen (2024) notes, geographers have disrupted the virtual/real binary by “making the immaterial material” (p. 914) showing that the seemingly invisible and intangible aspects of the digital, like “the cloud”, are rooted in physical infrastructures and lead to material impacts in people’s lives. To illustrate the material impacts of the digital, geographers have focused on the way that harassment and violence experienced in cyberspace are often extensions of similar harms that have long-occurred in physical space, particularly to maintain systems of oppression (Cockayne and Richardson, 2020; Cuomo and Dolci, 2021; Elwood and Leszyzynski, 2018).

For example, Mott and Cockayne (2020) trace the continuities between a case of white supremacist violence against a Black family in the 1950s and contemporary forms of digital harassment against academics. Reinforcing the way that digital and physical spaces are entangled, they show how white supremacist movements often gain followings online before taking action offline, using doxing as an example (p. 14). Mott and Cockayne’s work, alongside similar research that has examined (cyber)bullying in schools (Bork-Hüffer et al., 2020), racialized algorithmic predictive policing (Jefferson, 2017), and the production of masculinity through online dating apps (Bonner-Thompson and McDowell, 2017), disrupt the virtual/real binary to instead theorize digital technologies “as co-constituted with relational socio-spatial processes of gender, race, class, age and sexuality” which “provide key insights into how digitality reproduces structural oppressions in everyday lives” (Elwood and Leszyzynski, 2018: 637).

Also important to supporting this paper’s arguments is digital geographies scholarship that examines the digital as neither only oppressive or emancipatory, but rather takes a relational approach to understand digital technologies as never neutral (Leszczysnki and Elwood, 2015). Geographers have examined digital technologies as both oppressive and emancipatory in a variety of contexts. For example, Longhurst (2013) examines how mothers use video communication technologies (e.g., Skype) to maintain relationships with their children and to “conduct the performative work of mothering” (p. 665). She shows that while these digital technologies enable intimate relationships to continue after children have left the home and across generations, they do not necessarily change existing gender roles rooted in sexism: “Typically, mothers continue to run households and take responsibility for caretaking” (Longhurst, 2013: 666). Related, Bonner-Thompson and McDowell (2021) examine the contradictory relationships that young, working-class men living in isolated coastal towns under austerity cuts have with digital technologies. They show how devices and internet access do not necessarily lead to work opportunities or solve inequalities, and that engaging with these technologies results in a range of feelings, from frustration and anger to relief and a sense of belonging.

As Elwood (2020) notes, digital geographies scholarship has offered important critical analysis of the digital as exclusive and hegemonic, but that “digital thrivings are also alive and well” (p. 209), and that the digital always contains “possibilities for unanticipated forms of agency, subjectivity, or sociospatial relations” (p. 211). This approach is also reflected in recent geographic work on digital care and digital harm, including Maalsen’s (2023) examination of the way that both harm and care are entangled within algorithms and algorithmic actions. Relevant for this paper, geographers have also examined how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed both the harmful and caring potentials of digital technologies, including how digital storytelling allowed for the witnessing of diverse experiences of people in health and social crises (McLean and Maalsen, 2021), and the effects of telehealth on treating opioid use disorder and recovery (Rishworth et al., 2024).

Island geographies

Like the digital geographies literature discussed above, contemporary work in island studies has also turned toward a relational approach to examine islands and their geographies (Pugh, 2016). This relational approach moves beyond seeing islands as isolated, bounded, remote and peripheral to instead consider how “islands are part of complex cross-cutting relations, assemblages, networks, mobilities, spatial fluxes and flows” (Chandler and Pugh, 2018: 65). As part of the project of disrupting land/sea and mainland/island binaries, island geographers have worked to establish how such notions associated with islands are also relative (Grydehøj, 2019). That is, what seems isolated and remote to a mainlander may be viewed differently by an islander. As scholars have utilized a relational approach to examine islands, Grydehøj and Casagrande’s (2019) explain that some island scholars express concern that fixed links (e.g., bridges) and other forms of human connectivity reduce an island’s “islandness”. As an alternative, Grydehøj and Casagrande instead suggest that such connectivity alters “the way in which a place’s islandness is practiced” and that “various forms of island connectivity are neither innately good nor bad” (2019: 57).

Island scholars have also considered the role that digital technologies, specifically social media, play in facilitating connectivity between and across mainland and island communities. For example, Cave (2012) shows how social media has allowed activists in Pacific Island communities to engage in dialogue and strategize with online activist communities globally, while also facilitating accountability in a localized online public campaign to address police inaction in a domestic violence case. Related, Wilson et al. (2015) concluded that while Scottish islanders use social media to develop deep and long-lasting connections with people world-wide, the core theme of the users’ social media communication concerned discussion of inter-island relationships and commonalities as islanders. As Wilson et al. note, digital connectivity reinforces that “The physical and metaphorical boundaries of island social life are not so much crossed and broken as flexed and stretched by the possibilities of the digital world” (2015: 228). These perspectives are central to supporting this paper’s focus on experiences of and responses to TECC in island communities, as they illustrate that any positive or negative effects of connectivity between and across mainland and island communities are contingent on local spatial, cultural and economic conditions (Grydehøj and Casagrande, 2019).

In addition to work that complicates our understanding of island geographies through a relational approach, recent calls by feminist scholars have encouraged island studies to examine social inequalities and hierarchies within and across islands, specifically the role that gender and sexuality play in shaping island communities (Gaini and Pristed Nielson, 2020; Karides, 2017). In her appeal for “island feminisms”, Karides (2017) identifies a need for island research to engage with intersectional feminist theory and for feminist geography to examine the spatiality of islands. As Karides explains, island feminism begins with the lived experiences of islanders and “makes no prima facie assumptions that islands are better or worse for marginalised groups, but seeks to articulate the social and spatial relationships configured by them” (2017: 32). Albeit a small body of literature to date, feminist island scholars have offered insights to the dynamics of domestic violence in island communities. We introduce this work in the following section that reviews the multidisciplinary domestic violence scholarship that informs this paper.

Multidisciplinary domestic violence scholarship

Domestic violence has been a key area of study for advancing feminist theories of relationality. A central feature of this work has been challenging what constitutes domestic violence by disrupting the binary between physical and emotional abuse. This work illustrates how abusers entrap survivors in relationships by relying on patterns of coercively controlling behavior, including verbal, emotional, financial, psychological, sexual and/or physical abuse, that are equally or more effective than physical abuse alone (see Stark, 2007). Feminist geographers have built on this work to contribute important insights to the spatiality of domestic violence. This includes scholarship that disrupts the public/private binary by tracing survivors’ experiences fleeing abuse (Bowstead, 2017), examining survivors’ experiences of domestic violence in rural communities (Little, 2017), and exploring survivors’ experiences navigating public institutions for safety and support (Brickell, 2015; Cuomo and Dolci, 2022a). Reinforcing how abusers use emotional abuse and fear as tools of coercive control, feminist geographers have situated domestic violence as a form of everyday terrorism (Pain, 2014).

As noted above, albeit a small body of literature, feminist scholars have also examined the spatial dynamics of domestic violence in island communities, including experiences accessing and receiving support services (Dávalos and Zaragocín, 2022; Souhami, 2022). For example, in their study of domestic violence on San Cristobal Island in the Galápagos, Dávalos and Zaragocín (2022) explain that an adversarial relationship between islanders and mainland-based state agencies (e.g., law enforcement) lead to challenges in preventing and responding to domestic violence. Of particular relevance for this paper, Pedersen et al. (2023) trace how domestic violence service providers in rural locations in Scotland, including the remote island of Orkney, relied on digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide support to survivors during the lockdowns. Reinforcing the digital geographies literature introduced above, Pedersen et al. (2023) find that digital technologies presented both opportunities and challenges, as survivors living in tight-knit, small communities valued the privacy of online services, but that lack of access to devices and inconsistent broadband connectivity resulted in inequitable service provision.

Multidisciplinary domestic violence scholarship is also offering important insights to the ways that abusers use digital technologies to engage in coercive control. This research has reinforced that most abusers are not “tech-savvy”, instead relying on unsophisticated tactics, such as exploiting access to a survivor’s device or demanding a survivor’s password, rather than installing malicious or sophisticated software tools (Freed et al., 2018). For example, Bellini (2023) shows how abusers attack survivors’ online financial accounts, including locking survivors out of their banking accounts, making fraudulent purchases and applying for loans in the survivor’s name. Another type of “low tech” digital technology that abusers exploit are Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Examples of abusers misusing IoT technologies include remotely adjusting the heat with a smart home thermostat or using “nanny cams’’ to live stream video surveillance (Cuomo and Dolci, 2021; Tanczer et al., 2021). Abusers also use spyware apps to gather socio-spatial information about their partners, including where they go and who they communicate with (Bellini et al., 2020). Taken together, this work highlights how abusers commonly use everyday digital technologies that are typically low cost and low skill, to effectively control survivors across virtual and “real” space, often resulting in profoundly negative consequences for survivors’ material, emotional and professional lives. We turn now to an introduction of the two island communities that comprise the focus of our study and our approach to collecting data for this project.

Weaponized use of community forums

A key form of TECC in island communities that advocates described as deeply impactful was the weaponized use of community forums. Advocates explained that social media and online community forums, such as Facebook groups, are a common way for people to stay connected in island communities and to share a range of information, from upcoming community events to local politics. As online community forums in island communities have become normalized, advocates noted that survivors can feel compelled to join online groups to access community information, despite concerns around the loss of privacy that might come with this decision. An advocate explained:

People use a lot of social media in this community. It is very Facebook and community forum heavy. But to be able to join some groups, that means you have to give up some of your confidentiality privileges, because you have to disclose at least some information that then is accessible to everybody in the forum to be able to communicate.

Related to the privacy concerns of online forums, advocates noted that information spreads quickly in island communities where social connections between people frequently overlap, and that this spread of information is accelerated in online community forums. Advocates explained that abusers have made manipulative use of online forums to advance their own narrative and to preemptively discredit survivors. Allegations in online community forums included efforts to reverse the public perception of who is the victim and offender. For example, an advocate explained:

What I’ve seen is abusers using social media in the small community to be like, ‘I have been abused, actually. And here's my evidence for that.’ It’s a strategy to maintain power and control by reputation damage and instilling fear in a survivor.

Because of the widespread use of community forums in island communities, advocates explained that these lies spread quickly and that there are few formal means to stop the flow of damaging information or to correct the narrative. They explained that these online forum posts result in both reputational harm and have negative economic impacts, as survivors have lost employment and earnings as a result of what abusers have posted about the survivor. Advocates also explained that as a practice they do not participate in community forums or “correct the narrative” falsely established by abusers, both to maintain their legal obligation of confidentiality and because as the only domestic violence agency in the community, they do not want to alienate survivors:

We are very careful as an agency not to be involved in Facebook posts or to be seen as coming to the aid of others. We don’t take a stance one way or another, because the minute you do that, you've created a barrier to service for a whole other group of people.

Analyzing the weaponized use of online forums through a relational approach that understands the techno-socio-spatialities of TECC as entangled helps to reveal why this tactic is so effective. The weaponized use of online forums reflects abusers’ use of manipulation, a method of coercive control that relies on patriarchal assumptions that victims, especially women, are malicious, revenge-seeking liars (Stark, 2007). As scholars note, such traditional patriarchal assumptions are common in remote and rural communities (Little, 2017). Digital technologies compound these dynamics, as the abuser, later joined by other participants in community forums, quickly and effectively spread victim blaming narratives. Survivors are typically without opportunity to correct the abuser’s account and as noted above, domestic violence agencies cannot publicly comment on the veracity of the claims. The spatial implications of this tactic occur across virtual and real space, as survivors’ reputations are damaged online, often with consequences in their material lives, including negative impacts on their sense of safety. In island communities, the success of this tactic is further bolstered by a shared understanding that online forums are centralized locations for community members to participate and receive information.

Use of online public records and local island culture

The second theme that emerged regarding the geographically distinct manifestation of TECC in island communities concerns the way that abusers use online public records and local island culture to engage in TECC. Advocates emphasized how this is a common strategy for facilitating surveillance and monitoring, especially when abusers are attempting to find survivors after they have fled the abusive relationship. Advocates explained that due to their perceived remoteness and isolation, islands have long-been places that survivors of domestic violence have relocated to when leaving abusive relationships, and that this has been an effective strategy as survivors’ new residencies on islands often remained hidden. However, advocates noted that digital technologies, specifically a shift to the digitization of public records, have made it easier for abusers to find survivors living in island communities.

Advocates provided scenarios in which abusers obtain information from social media or public records to successfully locate the survivor. For example, advocates explained how abusers locate survivors through land ownership records that are available on county-operated websites. While this search process may be tedious, if an abuser is able to narrow down a survivor’s location by monitoring their social media accounts or social engineering information from third parties (e.g., a survivor is tagged in the photo of a mutual friend), they can then triangulate this information to search through online property records to locate the survivor’s specific address. An advocate explained,

In a tight knit community with only so many places to hang out, it’s easy to be captured in other people’s photos, even if you don’t have an online presence. And abusers can be really persistent looking through places where they think they might find the survivor. We’ve had people just randomly show up in the community, and the survivor didn’t know how the abuser found where they were, like years after.

Another advocate described how public Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) ² records can also be used to locate a survivor:

If there are protection orders that are coming from San Juan County, then that's already establishing that they're [the survivor] in this region. And then it's just a matter of calling around and asking.

This is an especially effective technique in the San Juan Islands, which comprise their own jurisdiction. As survivors typically file DVPOs in the county in which they reside, advocates explained that abusers are able to then deduce the general area of where the survivor is living. While the DVPO process permits survivors to keep their address confidential, a DVPO filed in San Juan County allows the abuser to drastically narrow down their search parameters.

While abusers may use similar deducing tactics across geographies, advocates explained that once abusers know a survivor is living on an island, they then rely on the friendly island culture to engage in stalking and nefarious social engineering. They explained that this often results in locals unwittingly disclosing a survivor’s whereabouts. For example, an advocate described a situation in which an abuser identified a survivor’s location through online surveillance of their Etsy shop. The abuser then used a funneling technique rooted in taking advantage of the friendly island culture to gather information about the survivor’s location, before moving on to specific means of contacting the survivor. These tactics of using open-source online information coupled with taking advantage of local culture pose unique risks to survivors in island communities, where they may have relocated specifically to seek safety and anonymity.

Akin to abusers who weaponize online forums, abusers who use digital public record data and local culture to surveil survivors also rely on entangled techno-socio-spatialities. While digitized records offer many benefits to the public, they can also be easily misused by abusers to assist in locating survivors. As the public becomes socialized to the idea that access to online records information is commonplace, it becomes increasingly difficult for survivors to maintain their digital privacy. The effectiveness of this techno-socio tactic is further augmented when coupled with local island culture that regards open and friendly interactions. Abusers, who often rely on public-facing charm (Bancroft, 2003), manipulate these values, which allows them to spatially shift their online tracking efforts into in-person and physical confrontations with ease.

The shift to remote services

Among the many changes that the COVID-19 pandemic influenced, the introduction of remote services into victim advocacy and court processes was a significant shift from long-standing practice. For a variety of reasons, including concern about compromising confidentiality and privacy, domestic violence agencies had been reluctant to consistently incorporate digital technologies into advocacy work (Cuomo and Dolci, 2022b). Related, the civil DVPO process in Washington state was designed legislatively as an analogue system in which survivors physically travel to the courthouse to fill out a paper petition and physically appear in-person at court for a hearing. Prior work has detailed some of the contradictions that emerged with this shift, as remote services both work to reduce barriers for some survivors accessing support and protection, while creating new barriers for others (Cuomo and Dolci, 2022a; Pedersen et al., 2023). Here we build on this prior work to emphasize the specific benefits and limitations of remote services for survivors in island communities. We begin by providing context for the service ecosystem in our case study sites, and how survivors accessed support and legal protection prior to the introduction of remote services.

Accessing services in island communities before COVID-19

The transportation barriers and subsequent impacts for service access that are often associated with island locations are present within our case study sites, especially for survivors seeking protection from the courts. Prior to the pandemic, survivors petitioning for a DVPO on islands without courthouses would travel by ferry to their jurisdiction’s courthouse: the Washington State Ferries system runs limited daily sailings, requires waiting in line for extended periods of time, and ferry service may be canceled unexpectedly due to boat maintenance. An advocate explained the time commitment for island survivors to file a DVPO petition:

You’re looking at six to eight hours just to get a protection order. And even if you had your own means of personal transportation, it's getting across [the Puget Sound]. You have to wait an hour or more in the ferry line, both directions.

Analysis from our longitudinal study has illustrated how the in-person DVPO process not only serves to normalize coercive control, but actively facilitates it by requiring survivors to appear in court alongside their abusers (Cuomo and Dolci, 2022a). The ferry system intensifies these safety concerns and feelings of entrapment as survivors traveling by ferry to attend DVPO hearings are likely to be waiting in line and sailing on the same boat as their abuser.

Benefits of remote services

Island advocates emphasized two primary benefits for survivors following the incorporation of digital technologies into service provision: increased feelings of safety and reduced barriers for access. Notably, these benefits are often entangled. Regarding increased feelings of safety, advocates explained that remote court hearings eliminate the obligation of survivors to physically encounter their abuser in court:

So I’d say probably 90-95% of our clients that we've been helping since remote [court] appearances went into effect are choosing to appear remotely. And that's been extremely beneficial. Some people want to face their abuser in court, but most people don't. Most people are terrified to go to court. So it's been a great benefit.

As advocates indicated, survivors have been more willing to seek protection when the court system does not escalate their feelings of fear. In addition to increasing feelings of safety, advocates also noted that the remote DVPO process has reduced transportation barriers for island survivors, as they no longer need to navigate the ferry system:

So there’s a lot of relief, to be able to have it [the hearing] remote. There’s a lot of feeling like, ‘Oh my gosh, I could be at my house in a place where I feel comfortable’. Also, again, island community, now you don’t have to spend two to three hours to get to court and then plan for the three hours to get back.

Advocates also described positive impacts of remote services for victim advocacy, raising similar themes as noted above. For survivors with limited access to personal transportation, video appointments offer a convenient option for accessing advocacy support services. Advocates explained that some survivors found it emotionally difficult to meet in an office with an advocate and preferred remote counseling sessions. While phone contact between advocates and survivors was common before the pandemic, the incorporation of remote advocacy during the pandemic helped to normalize alternative modes of advocacy that might not have been offered before, such as phone counseling. An advocate described:

I had one client who really enjoyed walking on the beach with a phone and talking to me. She didn't want to see, she just wanted to talk. She was able to sit on the beach and have her appointment and she was happy that way. And that's something I wouldn’t have thought about before we began remote advocacy. So speaking to the positivity of tech, that was a real positive for some of the clients.

Limitations of remote services

While the incorporation of remote services brought positive impacts for some survivors in island communities, advocates also highlighted limitations to this transition. Within the remote DVPO process, advocates highlighted issues related to survivors’ access to and familiarity with using digital technologies and devices (e.g., tablets and computers) to electronically file DVPO petitions. This process requires accessing a fillable PDF form online, completing the form, adding an electronic signature (or downloading, printing, signing, scanning and uploading the form) before submitting the petition online with supporting documentation and evidence.

Numerous challenges emerged for survivors without access to devices, a PDF program (e.g., Adobe Acrobat), internet, and the knowledge and comfort to navigate court websites and online paperwork. Advocates explained that survivors who lacked physical access to digital technology devices were also often “not tech savvy”, requiring intense support to complete the electronic DVPO process. An advocate explained:

We’ve utilized some tablets that we have here, we offered to loan them out. But most of the time when that’s happened, they [the survivor] tend to coordinate a time to come in, because when they don't have technology, they’re also not savvy with the technology. And a lot of the court services use PDFs. And a lot of people have to purchase a PDF program. So then there's cost prohibitive factors to be able to access it.

These financial and digital technology challenges were further exacerbated during the pandemic lockdowns when facilities (e.g., the library) with public resources, such as computers, were closed. Yet following the end of the lockdowns, advocates also explained that resource scarcity within island communities and a lack of technology knowledge continue to present challenges for some island survivors. This extends into the remote hearing aspect of the DVPO process, as survivors without access to a device with Zoom capabilities or familiarity with how to navigate video conferencing technologies require advocacy assistance to ensure they do not miss their court hearing.

Advocates also highlighted limitations associated with providing digital advocacy services, including concerns over safety and privacy, particularly for survivors with potentially compromised devices. For example, advocates expressed concern that remote communication, such as email and text message, could be intercepted by the abuser. This made it challenging for the advocate to be certain they were communicating with the survivor, even when safety planning strategies were put in place, such as the incorporation of code words. An advocate described:

Our plan was that if they didn’t use their code word with their message, you know it’s not them, but then they keep sending messages, and you’re like wait, is this actually them? If it’s not, what do you want me to do? Because this might mean that now they [the abuser] know a conversation is happening.

In addition to safety and privacy concerns, advocates also explained that similar stressors around technology use that presented during the remote DVPO process were present for some survivors who found remote advocacy anxiety-producing. This included survivors who felt stress learning how to navigate digital communication platforms for counseling appointments. Advocates also highlighted an additional limitation to remote advocacy without a video component in that it limited their ability to read visual cues about the survivor’s affect that they would typically use in counseling sessions:

And I will say, having seen her in person before helped me a lot, because for me, just meeting someone over the phone, I can’t read body language, I can’t read tones, there’s so much missed.

Examining the techno-socio-spatial entanglements of island survivor experiences of remote court and advocacy services affirms Elwood’s (2020) observations that digital technologies can be exclusive and hegemonic, while also containing emancipatory potential for increased forms of agency and subjectivity. In regards to the digital’s emancipatory potentials, the shift to remote court and advocacy services reduces barriers to service for many island survivors. Digital technologies expand the spaces and places in which survivors can access services; from the convenience of their home to the comfort of their advocate’s office. The emancipatory potential of remote court and advocacy services to increase access and feelings of safety are particularly significant for island survivors, as digital technologies help to reduce or eliminate the time that survivors must spend physically entrapped on the same ferry as their abuser, thus disrupting the potential for abusers to engage in coercive control. Yet, as detailed in this section, digital technologies are not universally emancipatory, and can also reinforce barriers for island survivors attempting to access support services. Like other predominately rural locations, island geographies experience gaps in broadband and internet services, reflecting a techno-socio-spatial digital divide that can result in negative implications for island survivors.