Dis-placed travel: On the use of GPS in automobiles

In this paper, I pursue a postphenomenological analysis of navigating with GPS in an automobile. I argue that GPS use is essentially different from navigating with a map insofar as one need not establish nor maintain orientation and directionality. Also, GPS provides a disembodied, omniscient navigational perspective. These aspects stem from the fact that GPS relies on earth-orbiting satellites, thereby reinforcing the modern view of the space/place relation that privileges abstract space over concrete, lived places. Following a postphenomenological thesis that technologies are non-neutral mediators of human experience, I examine some important qualitative aspects of traveling with GPS.