Spatial Humanities and GIS
The 'spatial turn' brought place to the center of humanistic inquiry, and geographic information systems gave scholars tools to map historical and cultural phenomena. Yet humanistic space is qualitative and contested, pushing GIS beyond its origins in measurement and management.
Definition
The use of geographic information systems and spatial analysis in humanities scholarship, together with the theoretical reflection on place and space that the 'spatial turn' brought to the humanities.
Scope
Covers the application and adaptation of geographic information systems to humanities research: historical GIS, the mapping of cultural and literary phenomena, and the theoretical 'spatial turn'. Includes the tension between GIS's quantitative, Cartesian assumptions and the humanities' interest in experienced, narrated, and contested space. Distinct from GIS in archaeology and in the geosciences.
Core questions
- How can GIS represent historical and cultural phenomena over space and time?
- What does the 'spatial turn' mean for humanistic inquiry?
- How do quantitative GIS models accommodate qualitative, experienced space?
- How should uncertainty in historical locations and boundaries be handled?
Key concepts
- Geographic information system
- Spatial turn
- Historical GIS
- Georeferencing
- Qualitative space
Key theories
- The spatial turn and humanities GIS
- Bodenhamer and colleagues argued that GIS can transform humanities scholarship by foregrounding place, while requiring adaptation to qualitative and contested space.
- Historical GIS
- Gregory and Ell set out the technologies and methods for building and analyzing spatial data about the past, including handling changing boundaries and uncertain locations.
History
GIS developed in geography and planning before humanists adopted it during the 1990s and 2000s amid the broader spatial turn. Gregory and Ell (2007) codified historical GIS; Bodenhamer et al. (2010) framed the spatial humanities; their 2015 volume on deep maps pushed toward layered, narrative spatial representation.
Debates
- Cartesian GIS versus humanistic space
- Standard GIS assumes measurable, coordinate-based space, which sits uneasily with the humanities' concern for lived, ambiguous, and contested place, motivating new approaches such as deep mapping.
Key figures
- David Bodenhamer
- Ian Gregory
- Trevor Harris
- John Corrigan
Related topics
Seminal works
- bodenhamer2010
- gregory2007
- bodenhamer2015
Frequently asked questions
- Isn't GIS just for geographers and planners?
- It originated there, but humanists use GIS to map and analyze historical events, literary settings, and cultural change over space and time. Doing so well requires adapting tools built for precise modern data to the uncertainty and qualitative meaning of historical and cultural space.