"Networks" have become a defining concept of our epoch. From micro-blogs that foster new political alliances to unprecedented globe-spanning viral vectors that threaten worldwide catastrophe, networks allegedly encapsulate what’s new and different. Not surprisingly, most analyses privilege technology as the unifying power behind networks: the term "Twitter revolution," for instance, widely used to describe events from Moldavia to Egypt, erases local political concerns in favor of an internet application. Although understanding universal characteristics of networks is important, this emphasis also risks making the concept of a "networked society" a banal cliché, incapable of addressing the differences between various "networks," or the odd transformation of networks from a planning tool—a theoretical diagram, a metaphorical description—into actually existing phenomena, into lived experiences.
To renew the conceptual power of networks, Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects—a global collaborative project of which the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University will be an important locus—concentrates on changing habits of living. Habits are crucial to understanding networks not simply as broad organizational structures, but also as structures created through constant actions that are both voluntary and involuntary. Habits are closely aligned with "affects": unconscious emotional responses to environmental stimulants that are central to the formation of individual perception. They are "glocal": local actions that spread globally, but not necessarily universally; they spread the effects of local actions elsewhere through specific trajectories.