Posthumanist Care and Ecologies of Empathy: Investigating Design Potentials for Nature:Culture HCI

HCI nature:culture dialogues have recently gained traction, highlighting ample opportunities for investigation. In this paper we look at the potential of locative games in fostering caring engagement with natural/cultural heritage. We present the results of a contextual study that explores the nature:culture duality of the Levada walks on Madeira Island and their intrinsic playfulness as a natural landscape. Through a combination of narrative self-reports and cultural probes, we conducted an on-site investigation of the motivations and embodied experiences of hiking these trails, distilling an empirical epistemology of human-nature interactions. By unpacking the various realities and tensions on the ground through a feminist ethics of care and posthuman lens, we provide insight into the design of future locative interactive technologies to support and encourage human-nature interaction. Our findings address and promote values of engagement and conservation in cultural and natural heritage through a nature:culture continuum.