I have organised a double-session on satellite navigation at the next AAG meeting in Boston.

Situating Sat Nav

Description:
Sat Nav offers technologically sophisticated spatial data models of the world, but the technology quickly sinks into taken-for-granted everyday driving practices, such that its social and political significance is hard to assess. The gadgets themselves take space on the dashboard and windscreens, but also make new senses of space for the driver, well beyond the car. The session will present a range of theoretically informed analyses questioning the social effects, cultural meanings and political economy of in-car satellite navigation.


Session One

Participants:

Amy Propen,
The use of sat nav systems: An empowering cultural practice or portentous of a lost geographical imagination?

Donald Cooke,
The TomTom effect: industry point of view

A J. Brimicombe,
Sat Nav: Rising theft of a geo-engineered must-have

Tristan Thielmann,
Navigation becomes travel scouting: The augmented space of car navigation systems

Caren Kaplan,
Precision targets: consumer subjects, militarization, and the politics of location


Session Two

Participants:

Georg Gartner,
Restrictions in mental representations of the world as a result of relying upon navigation systems

Alexander Klippel,
Can we afford to provide cognitively inadequate wayfinding assistance?

Fabien Girardin,
The co-evolution of taxi drivers and their in-car navigation systems

Jonathan Raper,
The mistakes that satnavs make (and what they don't know)

Discussant: David M. Mark


(Sponsorships: Communication Geography Specialty Group)

[Image from Daily Mail, "Council erects sign that tells drivers: Don't trust your satnav".]