Interpreting History with GIS
I’ve found better success this week engaging with this module’s digital tool, GIS (Geographic Information System). GIS applications and software allow us to visualize spatial data and for historians, it enables us to perform spatial analysis of past lives. I have a unique career path and interest that has transitioned from health to policy to history. While that may seem unusual, my interest in digital history was sparked by projects that used GIS to bridge these fields. From redlining maps to heat maps showing regional health disparities to urban renewal studies, GIS was the foundation of many impactful and informative projects. Seeing how GIS connected health, urban policies, and the history of marginalized communities naturally made it one of the tools I was eager to tackle in graduate school.
QGIS, an open-source GIS application, is something I downloaded over a year ago, trying to self-teach the basics. But I quickly found it to be overwhelming and intimidating. I made some progress through a free tutorial at the GMU library with further progress from taking a spatial history course with Dr. Stephen Robertson last semester. Each brief use helped me understand it slightly more, from learning about vector vs raster images, layers, and georeferencing (the latter which still requires looking up online tutorials each time). However, this week’s activities, uploading and understanding shapefiles, joining them with Excel data, and manipulating visualizations, really helped push my skills forward, making the use of QGIS, and its competitive third cousin ArcGIS, a little clearer. I feel more confident about trying GIS with my own research data.
Historical GIS and the amazing projects that have evolved from its use, make you think you can semi-conquer (or at least better analyze) the problems of the world. However, even with all its uses, it is important to keep its limitations in mind. As discussed in class, given the quantifiable nature of GIS, the projects that incorporate this tool sometimes reduce the complex stories and humanity. For example, considering the digital history projects that focused on urban renewal and displacement, the data visualization in dots doesn’t capture the loss of social networks, financial stability, or community support. Similarly, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database’s time-lapse feature doesn’t account for the inhumane conditions or suffering during the voyages.
Urban Renewal, Family Displacements, and Race 1950-1966, Digital Scholarship Lab, “Renewing Inequality,” American Panorama
, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed September 27, 2024
Loren Siebert, in “Using GIS to Document, Visualize, and Interpret Tokyo’s Spatial History”, emphasizes that when using GIS for historical research, one must consider the time, financial, and functional resources, including access to software and the potentially significant time requirements. As Chris Nelson reminded us in class, how the author of the article spent over two years inputting geographic layers and attribute data. Thankfully I live and study in a time where open data sources exist for city and census geographical information which are helpful for someone interested in 20th century urban history. Less readily available datasets and GIS information exist for distant times and lands. The article also highlights its “unforgiving nature” when it comes to ‘inconsistency and incompleteness’. This is also one of the biggest challenges for historical research. Historical records are often fragmented, filled with silences and erasures that demand critical interpretation and debate. The principles of scientific or mathematical approach to data can collide with the understanding that history is not meant to be absolute or interpreted consistently. Despite this contradiction it continues to be a great tool for historical research as long as we understand its power and sometimes limitation in shaping our understanding of the past.
Notes: Loren Siebert, “Using GIS to Document, Visualize, and Interpret Tokyo’s Spatial History,” Social Science History 24, no. 3 (2000): 537-574.
Hi Asha,
Your QGIS map looks great! I am glad that navigating QGIS is not as intimidating as I thought. Or maybe you have already spent tons of hours learning and experimenting until you feel confident about using it for your own research data. I still feel overwhelmed and do not know how to get started. I guess I just haven’t found a way to utilize and apply this tool to my own research questions.
While looking at the map and thinking about selecting, omitting, and symbolizing narrative, I, too, have a complicated feeling towards spatial history’s nature of removing people’s lives from history and, instead, using little dots and numbers to represent what once happened in the region.
Hi Asha,
I love how you highlight the overlap between the medical field and history, which I thought were almost total opposites. Your own map is great! I don\’t think I can tackle QGIS without the help of Dr. Otis or other classmates just yet, but I loved experimenting with it in class. I also agree with your discussion of Siebert\’s article and the inconsistency within the data. Historians know how insufficient sources can be, especially going further back in time. However, GIS and other mapping tools force them to confront these inconsistencies. Sometimes, it can be easier to miss or skip over when doing textual research, but impossible to miss mapping. During our class simulation, I kept thinking about all the parishes that were left white, all the missing pieces to the data. When your research is consolidated like that in front of you, the \’silences\’ in the data become glaring.