How can we map stories? A cybercartographic application for narrative cartography
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a cyber-cartographic application designed to address this issue and provide solutions to help properly map some of the many dimensions of narratives, including the places of the narration (geography), the connection between these places (geometry), as well as the temporal dimension inherent to storytelling.
Abstract: Narratives and places are deeply connected. Places often contribute to the shaping of a story, just as stories contribute to the production of spatial identities. Mapping narratives can thus have a double goal: to explore the geographic structure of a story, and to better understand the impact of stories on the production of places. While it may be easy to locate narratives as points on a map, this type of representation is rarely relevant in capturing and characterising the complex spatio-temporal dimensions of the narratives. In this paper, we present a cyber-cartographic application designed to address this issue and provide solutions to help properly map some of the many dimensions of narratives, including the places of the narration (geography), the connection between these places (geometry), as well as the temporal dimension inherent to storytelling. This application, originally developed to map contemporary Canadian cinematographic narratives (see examples here: http://scaquard.classone-tech.com/),...
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16 Apr 2016
TL;DR: The authors argue that assemblage theory may offer a common ground which allows scholars from both literary and geographical positions to locate their writings in the broader set of approaches that define literary geographies.
Abstract: Over recent years literary geography has adopted a relational approach to its subject matter. This article continues this move, suggesting that assemblage theory can help develop the sub-discipline in two interrelated ways. Firstly, at a project level, assemblage theory enables literary geographers to identify all components that have agency and influence over the power of fiction (including authors, translators, publishers, readers, places, etc). As part of this first argument, the article develops Hones’ concept of reading fiction as a ‘spatial event’ (Hones, 2008, 2014). This article interacts with Hones’ textual ‘happening’ and seeks to emphasise the valence of the spatial event of fiction on reader relations to material and social geographies. It offers a short case study from the work of novelist Tessa Hadley to illustrate aspects of this valence. Secondly, at the sub disciplinary level, the article argues that assemblage theory may offer a common ground which allows scholars from both literary and geographical positions to locate their writings in the broader set of approaches that define literary geographies.
14 citations
Cites methods from "How can we map stories? A cybercart..."
...Through this process the article presents the assemblage approach to answer calls to not only ‘better understand the impact of stories on the production of places’, but also, ‘grasp the nature of the different aspects of this interaction and how to conceptualise it’ (Caquard and Fiest 2014: 18)....
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TL;DR: Contagious as discussed by the authors is an engrossing study replete with canny, unanticipated readings, but it is also a testament to the social work literary criticism is capable of.
Abstract: were penned by Cold Warriors [and] disease-inflected political threats conformed to the specific mechanisms of viral infection\" (171). In the wake of the Cold War, the social registers of the outbreak narrative mutate yet again with the HIV/AIDS crisis, where the deterioration of the immune system that is the medical symptom of the virus allegorizes the breakdown of geographical boundaries and the threat of \"Africanization\" to the developed world—as Wald describes the way this outbreak is imagined, \"'African AIDS' realized the vision of a diseased continent as both a Third World present and a First World future\" (237). On these terms, microbes, germs, and viruses are not simply biological entities to be apprehended scientifically but rather become symbols for processes of social transformation reinforcing and reinforced by the cultural logic of outbreak. While Contagious bears the best traits of current multidisciplinary approaches to American Studies, combining cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and globalization theory in fruitful and provocative ways, it might share its greatest affinities in terms of theme and critical perspective with Peter Stallybrass and Allon White's The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Like The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Contagious is not only an engrossing study replete with canny, unanticipated readings, but it is also a testament to the social work literary criticism is capable of. Part and parcel of Wald's analysis is what she sees as the ethical reasons for identifying, demystifying, and transforming the outbreak narrative: While the plots describing epidemics might be conventionalized, what we learn from them and how we respond to them can change. In Wald's own words, \"It is possible to revise the outbreak narrative, to tell the story of disease emergence and human connection in the language of social justice rather than of susceptibility\" (270). By pushing the social possibilities of cultural criticism, Contagious is an object lesson in thinking about our own critical practices and theoretical concepts, and how we might reorient and revitalize them.
14 citations
01 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative analysis of six applications for mapping narratives on the Internet is presented based on the life story of a Rwandan refugee, and three main families of cartographic applications are identified: simple applications that allow the user to map stories in a standard format (e.g., Tripline and Google Tour Builder); more sophisticated applications directly linked to the world of GIS), which allow the users to tell various stories using maps but which also use maps as tools for spatial and temporal analyses.
Abstract: This article offers a comparative analysis of six applications for mapping narratives on the Internet. Based on the life story of a Rwandan refugee, three main families of cartographic applications were identified: simple applications that allow the user to map stories in a standard format (ex: Tripline and Google Tour Builder); more sophisticated applications directly linked to the world of GIS), which allow the user to tell various stories using maps but which also use maps as tools for spatial and temporal analyses (ex.: ESRI Story Maps, MapStory); finally, applications that are more research oriented using narratives as databases whose analyses can help us better understand the places, their personal and intimate geographies, and the structures of the narratives that refer to them (ex.: Atlascine et Neatline).
12 citations
30 Sep 2020-Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization
TL;DR: In this article, maps and GIS used for the nomination and subsequent management of UNESCO World Heritage sites have primarily served bureaucratic resource management purposes, however, bureaucratic maps offer an op...
Abstract: Maps and GIS used for the nomination and subsequent management of UNESCO World Heritage sites have primarily served bureaucratic resource management purposes. However, bureaucratic maps offer an op...
11 citations
01 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative analysis of six applications dediees a la cartographie des recits on the Internet is presented, i.e., the applications simples permettant de representer cartographiquement des histoires de maniere uniformisee (par exemple, Tripline et Google Tour Builder) and the applications plus sophistiquees and plus directement liees au monde des SIG permettent non seulement de raconter des historyoires variees, mais aussi dutiliser la
Abstract: Cet article propose une analyse comparative de six applications dediees a la cartographie des recits sur Internet. A travers la mise en carte du recit de vie d’un refugie rwandais, trois grandes familles d’applications cartographiques ont ete identifiees : les applications simples permettant de representer cartographiquement des histoires de maniere uniformisee (par exemple, Tripline et Google Tour Builder) ; les applications plus sophistiquees et plus directement liees au monde des SIG permettant non seulement de raconter des histoires variees a l’aide de cartes, mais aussi d’utiliser la carte comme outil d’analyse spatiotemporelle des recits (par exemple, ESRI Story Maps et MapStory) ; enfin les applications plus orientees vers la recherche qui abordent les recits comme autant de bases de donnees dont l’analyse peut nous aider a mieux comprendre les lieux, leurs geographies intimes et personnelles, ainsi que la structure des recits qui s’y referent (par exemple, Atlascine et Neatline).
11 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1992
764 citations
"How can we map stories? A cybercart..." refers background in this paper
...The airport – which is considered as an archetypical ‘non-place’ by Marc Augé (1992) – becomes the point of contact of multiple collective and personal destinies....
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...The airport – which is considered as an archetypical ‘non-place’ by Marc Augé (1992) – becomes the point of contact of multiple collective and personal destinies....
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Book•
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: Moretti as mentioned in this paper explored the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel and found that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history, in a series of one hundred maps, alongside Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas.
Abstract: In a series of one hundred maps, Franco Moretti explores the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel. Balzac's Paris, Dickens's London and Scott's Scottish Lowlands are mapped, alongside the territories of Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas, in a path-breaking study which suggests that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history.
305 citations
01 Jan 1993
260 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives and explore their current state in the Geoweb era.
Abstract: This report focuses on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives. Following a brief historical contextualization of these relationships, this report explores their current state in the Geoweb era. Using the distinction between story maps and grid maps as an analytical framework, I review emerging issues around the extensive use of technologies and online mapping services (i.e. Google maps) to convey stories and to produce new ones. Drawing on literature in film studies, literary studies, visual arts, computer science and communication I also emphasize the emergence of new forms of spatial expressions interested in providing different perspectives about places and about stories associated to places. In sum, I argue that mapping both vernacular knowledge and fiction is central understanding places in depth.
170 citations
"How can we map stories? A cybercart..." refers background in this paper
...…to use online locational services such as Google Maps to pinpoint the geographic location of film shooting (see for instance http://www.themoviemap.com), these representations are rarely appropriate to capturing and characterising the complex spatiotemporal dimensions of narratives (Caquard, 2013)....
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01 Jan 2016
138 citations
"How can we map stories? A cybercart..." refers background in this paper
...In more general terms, mapping narratives can also help to reveal the geographic structure of stories as argued by literary scholar Franco Moretti (1999)....
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...As pointed out by Franco Moretti (2005), there is a distinction in novels between geography (location) and geometry (relationships)....
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