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- Title
Complementarity of Cognitive and Experiential Ways of Knowing the Ocean in Marshallese Navigation.
- Authors
Genz, Joseph
- Abstract
Way-finders and navigators throughout the world have developed ways to think about and move through their particular environments. This article provides details of a wave-based system of navigation in the Marshall Islands, in which navigators mentally recall information of the ocean from models and maps (commonly known as 'stick charts') but place a strong emphasis on perceiving the movement of waves. I argue that in Marshallese navigation a powerful dynamic emerges in the complementarity of information-processing modes. A successful sea journey involves a combination of egocentric sensing of environmental phenomena and abstract, allocentrically framed representations. Recognition of Marshallese navigators' ability to shift back and forth strategically among these cognitive and experiential ways of knowing the ocean offers new insights for traditional navigation in the Pacific and advances the integration of psychological and cognitive approaches to way-finding in general.
- Subjects
MARSHALL Islands; NAVIGATION research; EXPLORERS; NAVIGATION equipment; NAVIGATION in shipping; NAUTICAL charts; NAVIGATION; PSYCHOLOGY; ATTITUDE (Psychology)
- Publication
Ethos (00912131), 2014, Vol 42, Issue 3, p332
- ISSN
0091-2131
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/etho.12056