Exploring an Absent Presence: Wayfinding as an Embodied Sociocultural Experience
Wayfinding has often been seen as being about the quickest or shortest possible route between two points (Hölscher et al 2011; Tam 2011; Haque et al 2006). Moreover, this process has very often been seen as a cognitive one, with the experiential nature of wayfinding and with the embodied, emotional and sociocultural aspects of this experience conspicuously absent. We argue that wayfinding is rarely a purely cognitive process that involves an individual person, who is entirely instrumental in navigating a direct and precise route, but instead that this is a process almost always directed according to embodied and sociocultural needs. We propose a reassessment of present wayfinding definitions and suggest an alternative understanding that includes sociocultural elements, embodied individuals and experience through their embodied senses, as crucial elements of the concept. Seeing wayfinding from this different sociocultural ontological viewpoint, opens up new ways of understanding and planning wayfinding systems.
History
Published in
Sociological Research OnlinePublisher
SageVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Citation
Symonds, Paul, Brown, David H.K. and Lo Iacono, Valeria (2017) 'Exploring an absent presence: Wayfinding as an embodied sociocultural experience', Sociological Research Online, 22 (1), 5Electronic ISSN
1360-7804Cardiff Met Affiliation
- Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences
Cardiff Met Authors
David BrownCardiff Met Research Centre/Group
- Qualitative Research Methods and Social Theory
Copyright Holder
- © The Publisher
Language
- en