Assembling Collaboration Space: Maps in Practice During Search and Rescue Efforts In Northern Norway

Rescue services in Norway are based on collaboration between private, public, and volunteer sectors. Digital mapping platforms serve as a support tool for those involved in a search and rescue (SAR) operation. However, they lack interoperability and pose practical challenges to the responders.
This research is situated in New Materialism, which focuses on interactions between heterogenous material-semiotic actors. Therefore, I analyze digital maps as assemblages constituted through practices. I deconstruct the “black box” of maps: investigate how maps are assembled for SAR operations, zooming in on what these assemblages can offer for efficiency of collaboration during an effort, especially when (dis-)connecting different localities. By doing so, I trace the interactions contributing to or disrupting cross-organizational capacity for collaboration during a SAR effort. The database for this study is formed from 15 semi-structured interviews with 13 people who are related to volunteer services, police, JRCC, and map modeling in Northern Norway, and supplemented by informal conversations, observations, and complementary documents analysis.
Findings reveal that digital maps can function as assembling or disassembling platforms for a coordinated rescue action while contributing to information sharing, decision making and situational awareness. This article demonstrates that maps are intrinsic to cross-organizational collaboration, and are interlinked with available infrastructure, training procedures, funding, regulations, and other socio-material aspects. Change in one of these nodes can have inadvertent consequences for the operational capacity of rescue services. Having mapped-out constellations can help trace how they are affected when implementing a change in the use of maps during SAR operations.