What qualitative GIS maps tell and don't tell: insights from mapping women in Tehran's public spaces

Abstract

Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (QGIS) refers to an array of methodological efforts to incorporate into Geographic Information System (GIS) more qualitative data than have traditionally been included. The majority of critical geographers have focused on the advantages of QGIS as an innovative method in feminist geography; however, little attention has been given to its limitations, particularly in non-Western contexts, where sociocultural subjectivity appears to be more difficult to access. The exciting prospect QGIS fosters, along with its conceptual and technical limitations, is the central focus of this article. This article represents an attempt to go beyond the first generation of QGIS literature and to critically explore its limitations. It draws on insights from my fieldwork studying Iranian women's sociospatial behaviors in Tehran's public spaces. Photographs, sketches, and narratives were linked to GIS data gathered from the Iranian Census Organization, National GIS Database, and Tehran Municipality. During my data analysis, two limitations were recognized: data exclusion and data scale incompatibility. Evaluating both the merits and limits I encountered in this case study, I conclude that QGIS application allows geographers, particularly cultural geographers who often deal with the symbolic and ethno-cultural meanings people attach to places, to possibly see more, but not necessarily “all.”

Keywords:

• Qualitative GIS
• cultural geography
• methods
• public space
• Tehran

Acknowledgments

I am extremely grateful to Nicholas Crane and Weronika Kusek for organizing a session at the 2013 AAG conference in Los Angeles where the preliminary draft of this article was presented. Dr Kathy Burrell's insightful feedback played a significant role in the progress of this article from the beginning. I found the reviews very helpful in improving the original article and would like to express my gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their time, detailed comments, and encouragements.

Notes

1. The author was born and grew up in Tehran and moved to the USA in January 2008. Since then, during her visits to Iran, she has been able to keep strong ties with Iranian academic and professional societies including her previous university and design firms. Due to the lack of political, and consequently, academic exchange between the USA and Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, there is a lack of first-hand ethnographic work in Iran. The author's ultimate goal is to fill this gap through her academic and activist involvements.

2. By the first generation of QGIS literature, I mean, those early efforts in integrating qualitative data in GIS started in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The majority of these writings aim to go beyond the traditionally assumed quantitative and positivist nature of GIS and include more qualitative, for example, ethnographic data, in GIS. See McLafferty (2002, 2005), Pavlovskaya (2002), Schuurman (2002), Kwan (2002b), Bell and Reed (2004), Matthews et al. (2005), Elwood (2006a, 2006b), Cope and Elwood (2009), Knigge and Cope (2009), and Wilson (2009). Also refer to Cope and Elwood (2009) for an excellent review of Qualitative GIS.

3. See the introduction to this special issue by Nicholas Crane and Weronika Kusek on contemporary research strategies and methods in Cultural Geography.

4. Tashakkori and Teddlie (1998) emphasize that mixed-method approaches are those in which both qualitative and quantitative data and analysis are used, while multi-method approaches are those in which different tools from either qualitative or quantitative framework are used.

5. Geo-ethnography also carries a more comprehensive definition in cultural geography literature. Karen Till (2005, p. 11) defines it as “an approach that focuses on why people make places to create meaning about who and where they are in the world, and how, in the process of place making, they communicate feelings of belonging and attachment.” Therefore, both definitions offer a research tool to study meanings and social functions of places by geographers. In this article, I intentionally adopt the earlier definition by Matthews et al. (2005), in which GIS spatial techniques are used.

6. Critical GIS refers to any application of GIS outside the positivist and masculinist technoscience domain such as volunteered GIS, participatory GIS, ethnographical postcolonial engagement, QGIS, emotional geographies, and queer GIS.