Our everyday geographies are increasingly entangled with digital spaces, technological devices, and spatial media. One such device is the Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display (VR HMD), which in recent years has become accessible for casual users. As an emerging medium, VR plays with spatial perceptions of presence, movement, and sociality. Seeking to challenge the dominant conceptualization of immersion as the main spatiality of VR, this thesis makes empirical and theoretical contributions to the fields of digital geographies and VR research. First, exploring the empirically overlooked context of domestic VR usage through ethnographic methods, materials were collected in Swedish homes to inquire about what VR users’ everyday practices can tell us about experiencing digital places. Results show that presence in digital place through immersive media should not be reduced to sensations of being removed, nor the illusion of being virtually elsewhere. Rather, the physical environment and the sensuous connection with devices are instrumental for VR users being in place. Second, this thesis introduces Ektopic emplacement as a phenomenological theorization of being in place through immersive media. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of place theory and phenomenology, the spatialities of VR usage are analyzed as an emplaced and embodied practice of navigating, not the transition from a physical place into a virtual or digital one, but a being in places. Ektopic emplacement is explored as a mode of being in places with and through technological objects. Thus, rather than being here or there, immersed or not immersed, VR users’ being in place is dual, split, and shifting; simultaneously removed as well as remaining. The Ektopic is developed as a response to the fractured sense of place brought on by immersive media and considers the technological devices we utilize in our everyday life as objects that we inhabit and enjoy to condition our very being in the world.

Our everyday geographies are increasingly entangled with digital spaces, technological devices, and spatial media. One such device is the Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display (VR HMD), which in recent years has become accessible for casual users.  

Through ethnographic methods, this thesis explores VR users’ everyday practices and experiences. Applying a theoretical framework of place theory and phenomenology, spatialities of VR usage are analyzed as emplaced and embodied practices of navigating, not a transition from a physical place into a virtual one, but a being in dual places.

The results show that presence in digital place through immersive media should not be reduced to sensations of being removed, nor illusions of being virtually elsewhere. Rather, the physical environment and the sensuous connection with devices are instrumental for users’ sense of being in place.  

This thesis introduces Ektopic emplacement as a phenomenological theorization of being in place through immersive media. The Ektopic is explored as a mode of being in places with and through technological objects. The Ektopic is developed in response to the fractured sense of place brought on by immersive media and to consider the devices we use in our everyday life and enjoy to condition our being in the world.