GIS, Ethnography, and Cultural Research: Putting Maps Back into Ethnographic Mapping
Authors: Chris Brennan-Horleya; Susan Luckmanb; Chris Gibsona; Julie Willoughby-Smithc
Affiliations: a Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia b School of Communication and Hawke Research Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia c School of Communication, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia DOI: 10.1080/01972240903562712Publication Frequency: 5 issues per yearFormats available: HTML (English) : PDF (English)Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions
Abstract
This article discusses how geographic information system (GIS) technologies were used to enhance ethnographic methodologies within a cultural research project, Creative Tropical City: Mapping Darwin's Creative Industries. It shows how mapping technologies can broaden the scope of data available via interview practices and produce innovative ways of communicating research results to stakeholder communities. A key component of the interview process was a “mental mapping” exercise whereby interviewees drew sketches, revealing important sites and linkages between people and places. A GIS linked responses to real-world locations, collating and displaying them in meaningful ways. Responses uncovered Darwin's unique geography of creative inspiration—a geography that preferences Darwin's natural environment over sites of urban creative milieu.
|
| Keywords: creative industry mapping; creative inspiration; ethnography; geographic information systems |
Combining interviews with maps. As fascinated as I am with maps, they are enlivened when combined with lived experiences. Capturing and placing stories adds another voice. The map alone may tell a story, but it is deeper and broader when memory is brought to the surface, when lived history can be integrated and replayed through them.
