How Distant is Close Enough? Exploring the Toponymic Distortions of Life Story Geographies

Abstract

Stories are now broadly recognized as important sources of geographic information in different domains of the spatial humanities. The methodologies mobilized to identify these spatial data, however, remain the subject of intense debate. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by focusing on what we can learn from the close reading of stories to improve the quality of distant reading approaches. We do this through an in-depth comparative analysis of how toponyms are used across 10 oral life stories of exiles. Results show that a “distant listening” of the number of country names mentioned in these stories provides an accurate representation of their global geographies. However, the finer-scaled geographies of these stories become highly distorted when counting more local toponyms such as neighborhoods, cities or regions. This study also reveals that results could be improved by accounting for the distribution and repetition of toponyms throughout these stories. Such insights and their nuances are described in this paper with an aim to help narrow the gap between close and distant reading methodologies.

空间人文学科的各个领域普遍认为故事是地理信息的重要来源。然而, 确定空间数据的方法仍然处于激烈争辩中。本文关注了用细读去改进远读的经验, 旨在为这场辩论做出贡献。我们深入地比较分析了10个流亡者口述生活故事中对地名的使用情况。结果表明, “远距离倾听”故事中的国家名称的数量, 可以准确地表达故事的全球位置。然而, 对局域地名(如社区、城市或地区)进行计数, 故事的精细位置会被高度扭曲。本研究还表明, 对故事中地名的分布和重复进行解释, 能改善分析结果。本文描述了这些发现及其差别, 旨在缩小细读和远读方法之间的差距。

Las historias o relatos son ahora vastamente reconocidos como fuentes importantes de información geográfica, en diversos ámbitos de las humanidades espaciales. Sin embargo, las metodologías que se utilizan para identificar estos datos espaciales siguen siendo materia de intenso debate. En este escrito contribuimos a ese debate enfocándonos en aquello que podemos aprender a través de una lectura atenta de las historias para mejorar la calidad de los enfoques de lectura a distancia. Esto lo hacemos por medio del análisis comparativo a profundidad sobre cómo se usan los topónimos a lo largo de diez historias orales de exiliados. Los resultados muestran que un “escuchar a distancia” de un número de nombres de países mencionados en estos relatos dan una representación exacta de sus geografías globales. No obstante, las geografías a escala más fina de estos relatos se distorsionan notablemente cuando se incluyen topónimos más locales, tales como los de barrios, ciudades o regiones. Este estudio revela también que los resultados podrían mejorarse si se tomase en cuenta la distribución y repetición de topónimos a lo largo de todas estas historias. En el artículo se describen estas visiones y sus matices con la intención de ayudar a angostar la brecha entre las metodologías de lecturas cercanas y distantes.

Key Words:

• close reading
• distant reading
• literary cartography
• oral history
• story mapping

 :

• 细读
• 远读
• 文学制图
• 口述历史
• 故事制图

 :

• cartografía literaria
• historia oral
• lectura cercana
• lectura distante
• mapeo de relatos

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank all the individuals mentioned in this paper who made this project possible by sharing their life stories. This project was supported by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and CANARIE Canada.

Notes

1. The terms “close listening” and “distant listening” (as opposed to “close” and “distant reading”) are used henceforth since they better describe our methodology which used audiovisual material and explored measures such as discourse time, as opposed to measures more appropriate for textual analyses such as character distance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canarie [RS303]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-2016-1178].

Notes on contributors

Sébastien Caquard

SÉBASTIEN CAQUARD is an associate professor in the department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. He is also the lead co-director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and the director of the Geomedia Lab at Concordia University. His research lies at the intersection between mapping, technologies and the humanities.

Emory Shaw

EMORY SHAW has a BA in Urban Systems from McGill University and an MSc in Geography from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. He currently contributes to research in the Geomedia Lab and to the development of Atlascine, an online story mapping tool.

José Alavez

JOSÉ ALAVEZ is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Drawing on new cartographic theories and practices, his Ph.D. research focuses on studying and mapping the life stories of individuals who experienced death in the context of migration.