ABSTRACT

The past 25 years have seen a proliferation of interest in GIS among humanists and humanistic social scientists. Under various banners – historical GIS, qualitative and mixed methods GIS, spatial and digital history, digital humanities, spatial humanities or geohumanities – researchers have developed new ways to include qualitative data within the framework of GIS. At the same time, social and theoretical critiques of GIS as a tool wielded chiefly by and for those in power have increased awareness of its limitations, particularly for studying human perceptions, experiences, and the meanings of place. We agree with a growing chorus of geographers that the most common data structures in GIS are inadequate to capture or analyze the relational dimensions of subjectivity. As part of the solution, we propose an alternative hybrid framework that prioritizes topological relationships while retaining coordinate locations as points of connection between geographic places and experiential evidence. This article explains how the challenges posed by Holocaust survivor testimony inspired us to pursue inductive spatial analysis and non-coordinate means of mapping. We then set out a model for a topological GIS and illustrate its application with two survivor testimonies and a map of their experiences.

摘要

在过去的25年中，人文主义者和人文主义社会科学家对GIS的兴趣激增。在历史性GIS，定性和混合方法GIS，空间和数字历史，数字人文科学，空间人文或地球人文科学的各种旗帜下，研究人员开发了新方法，将定性数据纳入GIS框架。同时，社会和理论对GIS作为主要由当权者使用和作为掌权者使用的工具的批评，使人们越来越意识到它的局限性，特别是在研究人类的观念，经验和地方的意义上。我们同意越来越多的地理学家的意见，即GIS中最常见的数据结构不足以捕获或分析主观性的关系维度。作为解决方案的一部分，我们提出了一个替代混合框架，该框架优先考虑拓扑关系，同时保留坐标位置作为地理位置和经验证据之间的连接点。本文解释了大屠杀幸存者证词所带来的挑战如何激发我们进行归纳空间分析和非坐标制图方法。然后，我们建立了一个拓扑GIS模型，并通过两个幸存者证词和他们的经验图来说明其应用。