Time–space distanciation refers to the stretching of social systems across
space and time. The term was coined by sociologist Anthony Giddens
(1990) and refers to the interpenetration of people and places over
increasingly large distances. Echoing McLuhan’s work (see global village
section above) Giddens argues that people interact in two ways: face to
face, and remotely through transport and communications technologies.
The second has become increasingly important, ‘distanciating’ the
relations between people. Thus people who are not actually physically
present in absolute space can be important social actors. Giddens does
not argue that this process leads to homogenization, indeed greater
distanciation increases the potential for humans to restructure global
scale systems. Massey (1991) builds on this concept when she discusses
the ‘global sense of the local’ which pervades our everyday experiences.