Journeys unknown: Embodiment, affect, and living with being “lost” and “found”

Abstract

Abstract The tools, technologies, and practices people use to find their way are rapidly changing. Over the last decade, the “new mobilities paradigm” (Sheller & Urry, 2006) has enhanced how we understand our mobile lives. New mobilities research has focused attention on the ways in which we experience the world as we move through it: including the more ephemeral, fleeting, and affective practices that shape everyday mobilities. Despite this, most new mobilities research focuses on journeys where people know, or can relatively easily interpret information about, where they are going. As a result, analysis of stories about how people experience being “lost” and “found” as they negotiate their everyday mobilities is largely absent from the mobilities literature in human geography. This is problematic because the practices of trying to find our way and being lost and found fundamentally shape mobilities and produce affects which shape future journeys. This paper theorises the impact of exploring wayfinding practices for mobilities research. By bringing together conceptual insights from current mobilities research and popular accounts of being lost and found, this paper will open up discussion regarding how researchers conceptualise, articulate, and account for the lived experiences of being lost and found in their work.

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