Locative Technologies and the Human Sense of Place: A History of Spatial Literacy, 1800-2020

The project "Locative technologies and the human sense of place" examines the human ability to find the way and create meanings in landscapes, in a historical perspective. We take as our point of departure the many contemporary debates about how new technologies such as smartphones and GPS have been detrimental to the sense of place. We critically evaluate such claims through three historical case studies: 1) how the sense of place has been understood in popular and scholarly literature, travel writing, newspapers, and other texts throughout history; 2) how trekkers and travelers have used different technologies as support in their navigation of familiar and unfamiliar landscapes since 1800; and 3) how automobilists have found their way through coastal landscapes in Western Norway since 1900. The case studies explore different approaches to the interplay between technology, landscapes, and human experiences. The project ended in 2023 and the last planned deliverables will come in 2024: the PhD project will conclude with a defence in April 2024 and in summer 2024 the museum exhibition at Maihaugen that the project contributed to will open. The project has contributed to an increased understanding of how nature and places are experienced through wayfinding practices. Such practices include both the physical presence of bodies traveling through landscapes and different forms of mediating technologies that shape and frame the experiences of the travellers. The project has focused both on modifications of landscapes (roads, bridges, paths, signs) and different knowledge practices (guide books, maps, narratives) that together contribute to the mediation of landscapes. In such a perspective, newer technologies like the GPS are understood as part of a longer tradition, and the human sense of place is not something that is exclusively located within the human, but also distributed through landscapes. This also opens up for the human sense of place to be understood and managed as a form of cultural heritage.

Prosjektet har bidratt til en økt forståelse av hvordan naturopplevelser og steder erfares gjennom stedfinningspraksiser. Slike praksiser innebærer både fysisk tilstedeværelse av kropper på reise gjennom landskap og ulike former for medierende teknologier som former og setter rammene for de reisendes opplevelser. Prosjektet har fokusert både på modifiseringer av landskap (veier, broer, stier, skilt) og ulike kunnskapspraksiser (reisebøker, kart, fortellinger) som samlet bidrar til mediering av landskap. I et slikt perspektiv må nyere teknologier som GPS forstås som del av en lengre tradisjon, og stedsansen blir noe som ikke utelukkende finnes internt i mennesket, men også distribuert gjennom landskap. Dette åpner også for at stedsansen kan forstås og behandles som en form for kulturarv.

"Locative Technologies and the Human Sense of Place" seeks to uncover the historical relationship between the usage of locative technologies and the development of a sense of place. This project critically evaluates the claims of detrimental effects of locative technologies in the digital age through three historical case studies: 1) A history of spatial literacy as an idea and a concept, 2) A study of how tourists and trekkers have navigated and come to know natural landscapes through locative technologies since 1800, and 3) The convergence of locative technologies and automobiles in the 20th century. The project builds on humanistic and historical expertise in order to contextualize and provide empirical depth to contemporary debates about spatial literacy, the human ability to read and make sense of a landscape, through a deliberately historical perspective, in order to establish a more nuanced baseline from which to evaluate claims of historical change. A key goal is to avoid deterministic claims about the influence of technology on place-based sensemaking processes. The project will argue that the human sense of place is always-already established through deep engagement with locative technologies, of which the GPS is only the latest in a long series.