Digitizing and Visualizing Sketch Map Data: A Semi-Structured Approach to Qualitative GIS

Aux côtés des approches qualitatives de cueillette des données, le croquis cartographique constitue un moyen intuitif de récolter les impressions de participants et de participantes sur l’espace et les lieux. Mais les données recueillies sont souvent difficiles à traiter, en particulier à numériser et à visualiser. Après une description de ces difficultés, cet article présente une approche « semi-structurée » de la cueillette, de la numérisation et de l’analyse des données en vue d’un croquis cartographique, ainsi qu’un progiciel à code source ouvert, QualMap, qui offre des outils de numérisation de ces données en langage de programmation R. Cette approche conserve les cartes de base précises employées dans d’autres travaux préparatoires à des croquis cartographiques. Pour aider à la numérisation et à l’analyse, elle leur surimpose toutefois une unité spatiale, déterminée par la chercheuse ou le chercheur. L’utilisation d’une unité spatiale normée ouvre encore d’autres possibilités de cartographie et d’analyse. L’applicabilité de cette approche est illustrée par un projet d’échantillonnage qui analyse les perceptions de l’espace recueillies auprès d’un échantillon de commodité formé d’étudiants et d’étudiantes de niveau collégial. Le groupement sur les cartes ainsi produites montre, autour du campus, une « bulle » qui rend compte de l’essentiel des déplacements hebdomadaires de la population étudiante. Ces données sont appariées à des données sur la criminalité, ce qui suggère la possibilité d’étendre par des méthodes mixtes cette approche « semi-structurée » du croquis cartographique.

They Are Preserved Forever: Visualising the Memorialisation of Archipelagic Religious and Community Identities

In this article, we respond to the Special Issue theme by addressing the complexities of religious identities in archipelagic communities where the dual role of the sea as conduit and barrier has impacted the parish system, farming estates and community life. The focus is primarily on nineteenth and twentieth century testimonies and material evidence, approached within a broader chronological context going back to the Middle Ages. Using qualitative GIS mapping of the habitations of the people memorialised in two burial grounds in Orkney, we visualise the active role of the islander in constructing identities linking people and place at parish, community and personal levels. The results show that the people with memorial stones were buried within a long-established parochial structure but did not adhere to ecclesiastical norms, with district burial grounds being favoured over a single parish churchyard. We conclude that this approach demonstrates the complexities of identities within an island community and identify its applicability in other contexts combining material culture and historical documentation to investigate religious island identities.

Accessing Informal and Formal Social Supports Among Older Immigrants in Toronto: A Mixed-Methods Approach

Older immigrants represent 30% of the older adult population in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2016). They are more likely to experience social isolation and loneliness than non-immigrant older adults due to loss of informal social support, language barriers, financial barriers and geographic barriers (Guruge et al, 2010; Lai & Chau, 2007). This paper examines the access of Arabic-, Mandarin- and Spanish-speaking populations to language-specific services in the City of Toronto. A qualitative GIS framework was employed, integrating E2SFCA accessibility measures with qualitative data in order to provide insight into gaps in service, lack of awareness, older immigrant concerns and the unification of qualitative analysis and geospatial techniques.

Accessing Informal and Formal Social Supports Among Older Immigrants in Toronto: A Mixed-Methods Approach

Older immigrants represent 30% of the older adult population in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2016). They are more likely to experience social isolation and loneliness than non-immigrant older adults due to loss of informal social support, language barriers, financial barriers and geographic barriers (Guruge et al, 2010; Lai & Chau, 2007). This paper examines the access of Arabic-, Mandarin- and Spanish-speaking populations to language-specific services in the City of Toronto. A qualitative GIS framework was employed, integrating E2SFCA accessibility measures with qualitative data in order to provide insight into gaps in service, lack of awareness, older immigrant concerns and the unification of qualitative analysis and geospatial techniques.

Learning from the Informality. Using GIS Tools to Analyze the Structure of Autopoietic Urban Systems in the “Smart Perspective”

This paper explores the link between the current vision of the “smart city” and the notion of urban autopoiesis understood as self-organized/managed urban systems. It seeks to highlight how the use of GIS analysis, applied to the study of informal settlements, can provide useful information to understand the smart city paradigm. The paper argues the key idea that a smart city should not be seen only as a high-tech urban environment because the transition to smartness will need major changes in its inner structure. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative GIS analysis methods, this study examines the case of the BaSECo Compound, one of the densest informal settlements in Metro Manila (Philippines), with the aim of both generating a comprehensive morphological analysis of this dynamic urban area as well as contributing to the configurational theory of the smart city. The results suggest that the analysis of autopoietic urban systems could expand our understanding of how the structure of the city could evolve to accommodate the needs of its citizens and creating more resilient and inclusive communities.

Effects of integrated conservation–development projects on unauthorized resource use in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda: a mixed-methods spatio-temporal approach

This study supplements spatial panel econometrics techniques with qualitative GIS to analyse spatio-temporal changes in the distribution of integrated conservation–development projects relative to poaching activity and unauthorized resource use in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Cluster and spatial regression analyses were performed on data from ranger monitoring containing > 35,000 combined observations of illegal activities in Volcanoes National Park, against tourism revenue sharing and conservation NGO funding data for 2006–2015. Results were enriched with qualitative GIS analysis from key informant interviews. We found a statistically significant negative linear effect of overall integrated conservation–development investments on unauthorized resource use in Volcanoes National Park. However, individually, funding from Rwanda's tourism revenue sharing policy did not have an effect in contrast to the significant negative effect of conservation NGO funding. In another contrast between NGO funding and tourism revenue sharing funding, spatial analysis revealed significant gaps in revenue sharing funding relative to the hotspots of illegal activities, but these gaps were not present for NGO funding. Insight from qualitative GIS analysis suggests that incongruity in prioritization by decision makers at least partly explains the differences between the effects of revenue sharing and conservation NGO investment. Although the overall results are encouraging for integrated conservation–development projects, we recommend increased spatial alignment of project funding with clusters of illegal activities, which can make investment decision-making more data-driven and projects more effective for conservation.

Cultural Mapping

Cultural mapping is a mode of inquiry and a methodological tool that aims to make visible the ways local stories, practices, relationships, memories, and rituals constitute places as meaningful locations. Although there is still a fuzziness to the boundaries of this field, cultural mapping has generally evolved along two main branches: The first begins with cultural assets, seeking to identify and document tangible and intangible assets of a place to ultimately develop a cultural resource or asset mapping. The second branch begins with a culturally sensitive humanistic approach, seeking to articulate a “sense of place,” people-place meanings, and distinctive elements. While the former approach tends to emphasize the documentation of “information” and the latter tends to focus more on “participation” and “meaning,” they are increasingly mutually informing approaches. Cultural mapping/cartography is allied with deep mapping, community mapping, participatory asset mapping, counter-mapping, qualitative GIS, and emotional mapping. These are connected through their focus on bottom-up processes for making visible the knowledge of citizens/residents, and shared topics of narratives, identity, histories, and local practices that bring meanings to places. Cultural mapping has shifted from focusing on tangible cultural assets to intangible aspects of place, aiming to discover what makes a place distinctive. Cultural products such as literature, film, and music draw from and contribute to the cultural meanings of a place; and the mapping of these onto a territory also forms a branch of cultural mapping. This work is also found within the fields of geography (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Geography articles “Geography and Literature,” “Geography and Film,” and “Geographies of Music, Sound, and Auditory Culture”), tourism, and digital humanities. Artist map traditions also influence the field of cultural mapping (see the section on “Map Art” within the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Geography article “Community Mapping”), with artists taking on a leadership role in many community-engaged cultural mapping initiatives. Cultural mapping has been co-developed through a loosely formulated international community of practice consisting of scholars, in-community practitioners, and policy/governance agencies (e.g., UNESCO, national cultural ministries, local authorities). While this annotated bibliography focuses mainly on the leading scholarly work in this field, it also provides an international selection of cultural mapping handbooks and toolkits as well as examples of cultural mapping projects. Following General Overviews, Special Journal Issues, Methodologies, and Theoretical Underpinnings of the field, this entry is organized according to seven domains of contemporary cultural mapping research and practice: Community Engagement, Participation, and Empowerment; Indigenous Cultural Mapping; Cultural and Creative Industries Mapping; Local Cultural Planning and Governance; Artistic Approaches; Literary and Film Mapping; and Technological Approaches.