ABSTRACT
One of the most debated aspects of object-oriented ontology (OOO) is non-relationalism. OOO usually is seen as a theoretical stance distanced from relational ontologies, system-oriented conceptions, and network and assemblage theories. This chapter shows how a number of interventions proposing to combine non-relational and relational thinking have emerged from extra-philosophical disciplinary fields, such as geography. The cartographic field may be considered to be a case in point as the emphasis on mapping, practice, and relationality is increasingly combined with consideration of maps, existence, and objecthood. Drawing from the literature on mobile, navigational, wayfinding technologies and from post-phenomenological and post-human contributions about digital objects, I apply an object-oriented attitude to in-car satellite navigation by sensing the co-presence, rather than the interactions, of human and non-human entities. Using the ‘vignetting’ methodology, I evoke a sense of the alterity of the navigational object and show how it emerges not only in moments of breakdown, failure, or malfunction, as has been established, but also in moments when more than one navigational device co-exists.
