Kremer D, Walker B (2024)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2024
Publisher: Bielefeld University Press
Edited Volumes: Geographical Research in the Digital Humanities. Spatial Concepts, Approaches and Methods
Series: Digital Humanities Research
City/Town: Bielefeld
Book Volume: 8
Pages Range: 135-150
ISBN: 9783839469187
In the context of the spatial turn in humanities, place-related data and geovisalisations are used frequently to provide deeper insights in broad variety of domains ranging from spatio-temporal traces of historical persons or objects to spatial visualisation of complex scenes and environments. For this purpose, in a practice of mapping, data are often projected to the ubiquitous 2-dimensional artefact of the map. In addition to the well-researched suggestive power of this artefact to reveal (contested) truths, this approach features severe conceptual limitations, particularly when individual perspectives on space and place are brought into consideration. Tim Cresswell argues that "[w]e do not live in landscapes-we [just] look at them"! Theory-guided social science practice is well-suited to describe the impacts of digital artefacts and processes, but remains insufficient for facilitating rapid data screenings on a larger-thancase-study scale. Pattern recognition alone presently serves only as a complement to such inquiry, rather than a standalone solution optimised for qualitative data screening and analysis. In this paper, we make first steps towards a scalable solution by demonstrating the utility of semi-automated, theory-informed text mining approaches for offering complementary insights compatible with traditional qualitative methodologies from the social sciences. In calling for a scalable, text-based, multi-perspective analysis of data representing different conceptualisations of space and place in the health geographies domain, we derive a process model of earlier contextual spatial analysis and empirical discourse analysis. In a second step, we provide examples for an integrated model enhanced by different digital methods, used to produce knowledge that would otherwise go undetected. We comparatively evaluate the outcome of our proposed process model based on earlier studies and derive a research agenda for a general use of those methods in the Digital Humanities.
APA:
Kremer, D., & Walker, B. (2024). Placing wellbeing: Distant reading approaches for exploratory placial data analysis. In Finn Dammann, Dominik Kremer (Eds.), Geographical Research in the Digital Humanities. Spatial Concepts, Approaches and Methods. (pp. 135-150). Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press.
MLA:
Kremer, Dominik, and Blake Walker. "Placing wellbeing: Distant reading approaches for exploratory placial data analysis." Geographical Research in the Digital Humanities. Spatial Concepts, Approaches and Methods. Ed. Finn Dammann, Dominik Kremer, Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press, 2024. 135-150.
BibTeX: Download