what does it mean to tell a spatial story?
To tell the truth, I assumed spatial narratives were solely about architecture. It wasn’t until began to work within the humanities deeper that spatial storytelling can be much more than buildings and foundations. But what does it mean to tell a spatial story?
Narrativity is the basis of human subsidence. Narratives are accounts or tellings of events in a person’s life and are usually temporal in nature; for every object that humans interact with, there is a story to be told.
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Spatial narratives, however, tend to dig a little deeper. They are tellings of architecture and landscapes (the landscapes I added) that describe how a person may move through spaces. Not only physically move but how they emotionally, spiritually, and mentally move through spaces. To tell a spatial story is to decode a person’s mind to find how they were/are navigating life in the present based on these places.
What is most fascinating about spatial narratives is that storytelling is ingrained in our movement in space. I may be projecting here a little bit but I want you to think about your fondest memories (negative memories may involve space too but there is enough negativity in the world, let’s stay positive) ever, does it involve space? Space, either being a building or a landscape.
But, the biggest question I have is how do we as mini digital humanists incorporate spatial narratives into the digital space? To quickly answer this question (and I would love to hear your thoughts about it as well in the comments below) this is where digital narrative mapping can come into play. In order to incorporate spatial narratives into the digital space we need softwares and technologies that can allow for humanists to engage, create, and archive these digital maps. However, it is incredibly difficult to get humanists to engage with technologies suited for digital mapping. Not only are humanists traditionalists (very “old school” in their way of approaching research and data) but many of the softwares that are available do not match the kinds of data needed for digital mapping.
Well what kinds of tools do we need for digital mapping? That I am not sure of, however, what I am sure of (thanks to Bethany Nowviskie in her How to Play with Maps article) is that many softwares are built for social scientists and involve data and research for the present day, also known as synchronic analysis. This kind of analysis usually uses dense data. Whereas the data digital humanists would need is sparser and overtime. This leads to a miscommunication and misunderstanding of digital mapping tools for humanists. Arguably, it leads us further away from digital mapping. If we can educate ourselves and others on mapping and how it can be used beyond what we generally know about maps, more spatial narratives can be told and reach more communities.
