ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the introduction of one particular technology - the Global Positioning System (GPS) - by reindeer-herding Nenets of northwestern Siberia, whose life heavily depends on travelling skills. GPS is a product of industrialized society and a study of its spread among the reindeer-herding nomads can tell little about how technological innovations are created. The chapter reveals a lot about how technological innovations are adopted and spread within a society and, therefore, contribute to the theoretical debates described above. GPS is a technology that is not directly involved in the production process but, taking the studied group's way of life into account, it is clearly related to the production process and can affect it in numerous ways. Besides, the reindeer-herding nomads are by now included in industrial society and, therefore, their culture falls into the grey zone between the nature-based and technology-based cultures described by Hughes.
