Loosening the grid: topology as the basis for a more inclusive GIS

ABSTRACT

The past 25 years have seen a proliferation of interest in GIS among humanists and humanistic social scientists. Under various banners – historical GIS, qualitative and mixed methods GIS, spatial and digital history, digital humanities, spatial humanities or geohumanities – researchers have developed new ways to include qualitative data within the framework of GIS. At the same time, social and theoretical critiques of GIS as a tool wielded chiefly by and for those in power have increased awareness of its limitations, particularly for studying human perceptions, experiences, and the meanings of place. We agree with a growing chorus of geographers that the most common data structures in GIS are inadequate to capture or analyze the relational dimensions of subjectivity. As part of the solution, we propose an alternative hybrid framework that prioritizes topological relationships while retaining coordinate locations as points of connection between geographic places and experiential evidence. This article explains how the challenges posed by Holocaust survivor testimony inspired us to pursue inductive spatial analysis and non-coordinate means of mapping. We then set out a model for a topological GIS and illustrate its application with two survivor testimonies and a map of their experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Topological GIS
• mapping experience
• Holocaust

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and David O’Sullivan for their very helpful comments. Thanks also to Paul B. Jaskot, Maja Kruse, and Daniel Patrick Miller for their suggestions on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data and codes availability statement

All categorized mentions of places in the testimonies transcripts of Anna Patipa and Jacob Brodman are available in CSV format at this link: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12317237.v1

A document with pseudocodes for the extraction of places from the testimonies transcripts, as well as a step-by-step guide to creating the topological map which forms the main result of this research is available at this link: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12317234.v1

Notes

1. Generally, we count the Holocaust section of an interview as beginning when the interviewee first mentions German forces entering their hometown and ending at the conclusion of their account of escaping or being liberated from German control.

2. Point coordinates for known settlements could be centroids or manually placed in a settlement’s functional center, such as a central plaza or marketplace. Standard coordinates for named territories or physical features could also either be centroids or areal boundaries (for mountains or countries, for example) or center lines (for rivers and named streets). These conventions can also prove problematic for humanistic analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center, University of Maine, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Digital Humanities Advancement grant no [HAA-261290-18].

Notes on contributors

L. Westerveld

L. Westerveld is a human geographer who manages GIS and cartography projects at GRID-Arendal/UN Environment. He is passionate about pioneering creative projects that deal with complex environmental and human data.

A. K. Knowles

A. K. Knowles historical geographer is Colonel James C. McBride Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maine, where she directs the Digital and Spatial History Lab and leads the Holocaust Ghettos Project. For more than twenty-five years she has been a leader in developing historical GIS and geovisualization in the humanities and social sciences. Anne’s books include Calvinists Incorporated (1997), Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History (2002), Placing History (2008), Mastering Iron (2013), and Geographies of the Holocaust (2014). She is a founding member of the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative. Her research has been recognized by many fellowships and awards, including the American Ingenuity Award for Historical Scholarship (Smithsonian magazine, 2012) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015).