Disputation i kulturgeografi

Linnea Saltin försvarar sin doktorsavhandling i kulturgeografi "Ektopic. A Phenomenology of Domestic VR Usage in Sweden"

Doktorsavhandling Linnea Saltin 2026:15

Nedan följer en kort beskrivning av innehållet (ur baksidestexten):

Our everyday geographies are increasingly entangled with digital spaces, technological devices, and spatial media. One such device is the Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display (VR HMD), which in recent years has become accessible for casual users.  

Through ethnographic methods, this thesis explores VR users’ everyday practices and experiences. Applying a theoretical framework of place theory and phenomenology, spatialities of VR usage are analyzed as emplaced and embodied practices of navigating, not a transition from a physical place into a virtual one, but a being in dual places.

The results show that presence in digital place through immersive media should not be reduced to sensations of being removed, nor illusions of being virtually elsewhere. Rather, the physical environment and the sensuous connection with devices are instrumental for users’ sense of being in place.  

This thesis introduces Ektopic emplacement as a phenomenological theorization of being in place through immersive media. The Ektopic is explored as a mode of being in places with and through technological objects. The Ektopic is developed in response to the fractured sense of place brought on by immersive media and to consider the devices we use in our everyday life and enjoy to condition our being in the world.

Händelsen är öppen för allmänheten.

Medverkande

  • Phil I. Jones, opponent, professor, Birmingham University
  • Eva Thulin, betygsnämnd, professor, Göteborgs universitet
  • Cornelia Brantner, betygsnämnd, professor, Karlstads universitet
  • Natasha Webster, betygsnämnd, docent, Örebro universitet

Upplysningar