Rotating maps and users: praxiological aspects of alignment and orientation

Abstract

A longstanding topic in our notions of what geographic knowledge could be is the mental map, or, in its most recent form, mental spatial representations. In this paper we draw upon ethnomethodological critiques of cognition, and mind more generally, to re-specify navigation, orientation and alignment in terms of human practices of navigating, orienting and aligning in particular settings. Our ambition in the paper is less to dismantle notions of cognition still present in studies of map use; instead we offer the beginnings of a way of analyzing ordinary practices of wayfinding that treats matters of reasoning as publicly available in gestures and conversation rather than hidden indirectly accessible in inner processes of mental map use. To do so we describe what occurs during two video fragments involving consultation of maps in commonplace situations. The first is a group of tourists on foot trying to find an old building in Edinburgh and the second daytrippers traveling out for a day in the countryside locating some recommended places to visit in a road atlas.