This document summarizes a presentation on qualitative GIS (QGIS) given by Robert Berry. It begins by providing context on traditional GIS as a quantitative tool and then outlines the emergence of QGIS, which uses mixed methods to incorporate qualitative data. Several case studies are described that demonstrate approaches to mapping interviews and literary texts. The document concludes that early QGIS research is showing potential for exploring qualitative data spatially but cautions that a truly qualitative GIS may not be possible and more theoretical development is still needed.

1. Qualitative GIS
Robert Berry
CCRI Seminar Series
27th February 2014

2. Outline
• GIS – a quantitative tool
• Emergence of qualitative GIS (QGIS)
• QGIS Case studies
– Re-presenting past experiences using GIS
– Mapping interviews using open source GIS
– Mapping the Lakes: A Literary GIS
– Other stuff
• Conclusions

3. GIS
• “Digital technologies for storing,
managing, analysing and presenting
geographic information”
• Firmly associated with collection,
classification, analysis, and
presentation of numerical data
• Geography‟s „high-tech tool‟ based on:
–
–
–
–
Formal Euclidean geometry
Alpha-numeric database principles
Cartesian spatial conceptions
Quantitative frameworks and analysis

4. Geographic information

5. „Bread & Butter‟ GIS:
Visualising Descriptive Stats

6. Map 1- 'Clusters' of Deprivation in Bristol, England
Inferential
statistical
modelling
zi 
Z-values
I
-999 - 2
2 - 999
0
1
2
4
6
8
Kilometers
Map shows unusual clustering of low-income (<£10,000 pa)
households within the administrative boundary of Bristol,
SW England.
Z statistic calculations produced using circular neighbourhood
operations on a point dataset, with parameters of 550m radius
and 60 x 60 metre cell size respectively.
xi  
si
ni

7. Complex numerical modelling
0.05
0.46
0.31
0.10

8. Challenging „Traditional‟ GIS
• Critiques of GIS in the mid 1990s cast GIS as rooted
in positivist epistemologies (Pickles, 1995)
–
–
–
Most suited for quantitative techniques
Need to incorporate non-cartographic spatial knowledge
Exclusive, undemocratic, disempowering
• Decade of critical and reflexive engagement with GIS
challenges these characterisations (Schuurman, 2000)
–
–
–
Feminist geography/GIS and Critical GIS
Promotion mixed methods in geographical research
Conceptual – questions about how knowledge is produced
• Public participation GIS (a set of bottom-up
community based-GIS practices)
–
–
–
Move academic practices to the local community level
Promote local production of geographic knowledge
Ultimately encourage positive social change

9. QGIS Emerges
•
QGIS is a response to critiques of GIS (Critical GIS).
QGIS Emerges early 2000s >
•
Repositioning of GIS away from a solely positivistic
framework to employ multiple epistemologies
•
Extends beyond multi-media data integration. An
approach NOT just a collection of standalone techniques
•
It is about the full INTEGRATION of quantitative and
qualitative data
– Using maps to improve the understanding of qualitative data
– Compliment/triangulate qualitative research
•
QGIS is therefore arguable a misnomer – more a MIXED
METHODS approach

10. QGIS „Pillars‟
• Critical GIS/cartography
– Social implications of GIS
– Questioning how knowledge is produced
– Developing conceptual framework
• Mapping/analytic innovations
–
–
–
–
Traditional proprietary GIS software
CAQDAS and Google Earth
Open source GIS
New approaches
• Re-presenting space and place
– Geovisualisation (cartesian, non-cartesian,
flows, narratives, emotions, time, histories)
– Incorporate multiple meanings and to provide
context and texture

11. 2009
GIS comes
of age, sort of

12. QGIS gets a conference
“Qualitative GIS:
emerging issues and
possible futures”
Cardiff
University, 2nd – 4th
August 2010
GIS Research UK
Annual Conference
Spatial humanities
conference, Lancast
er 2015

13. QGIS Case Studies
• Kwan (2008) Re-presenting experiences of Muslim
Women in post 9/11 USA
– Narrative analysis
– Oral histories
– Sketch maps
• McDowall (2010) Mapping interviews using open
source GIS
– Sketch mapping
– Audio
• Gregory et al. (2014) Mapping the Lakes: A
literary GIS
– Narrative analysis

14. Kwan (2008):
Re-presenting post 9/11 experiences
of Muslim women in the USA
• Address limitations in Qual analysis in GIS by
exploring more direct approach to analysing
Qual data in GIS – beyond CAQDAS
• Conceptualised, designed, and implemented a 3D
geovisualization and qualitative analysis
component, called 3D-VQGIS, in ArcGIS
• Facilitating the interactive exploration,
interpretation, and 3D geovisualisation of
qualitative data

15. Post-9/11 USA
• Hostile to Muslims
• Traditional family gender role means
many out-of-home activities
• Kwan studied the impact on Muslim women
in Columbus, Ohio
– Daily activities and travel
– Access to public spaces
– Perception of the environment
• Short term and long term impact on
activities and trips

16. Data Collection
• 37 women in Columbus (2001-2003) in
several phases
• Activity diary survey
–
–
–
–
–
All activities
Start and end times
Travel mode
Street addresses
Purpose
• Oral histories via in-depth interviews
• Sketch maps of locations frequented and
unsafe areas (before and after 9/11)

17. Activity Diary

18. 3D Narrative Analysis
• Oral histories analysed by coding:
– Qualitative coding
– Space-time coding
Kwan (2008)
Based on the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space
proposed by Clandinin and Connelly (2000)

19. Blue – quite safe
Green – mod. safe
Yellow – not safe
Red - dangerous
Kwan (2008)
Visual Narrative/
Life Path

20. Kwan (2008)

21. Kwan (2008)

22. Kwan (2008)

23. Analysis and Interpretation
• 3D life paths useful in temporally and
spatially organising narratives, oral
histories, emotions, multimedia
• Expressive visual narrative that tells the
story of post-September 11 experiences
• Post 9/11 experiences of Muslims obfuscated by
media. Research helped recover and illustrate
experiences
• Demonstrates expressive power of GIS and
potential for creating visual narratives from
qualitative data

24. McDowall (2010):Mapping Interviews
Using Open Source GIS
• Unstructured interviews where discussion is
based on place, using maps
– Important geographical detail is lost
– Audio recordings are hard to search and crossreference against locations on a map
• Audio/video can be linked to locations on a
map, but does not address the live interview
problem
• Led to development of innovative GIS solution
using a Wii remote control and open source GIS

25. McDowall (2010)

26. Chris demonstrates..

27. Mapping Interviews Using
Open Source GIS
• Untested in „real‟ research interview
(2010)
• Technical developments
–
–
–
–
Interface
Searching
Assigning names to lines
Handling multi-part lines
• No indications of development of such
rival systems from mainstream GIS
vendors
• A great potential not yet realised

28. Mapping the Lakes:
A Literary GIS
(Lancaster University, 2014)
• Can GIS open up new spatial thinking about the
geo-specific literature of space and place.
• Lake District as a test area
• Researchers mapped out two textual accounts of
journeys through the landscape of the Lake
District
– Thomas Gray‟s 1796 Autumn Tour
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge‟s “Circumcursion” (1802)
• Early exploratory research
– Testing the possibilities and problems

29. Mapping the Lakes
• three main areas:
– the writer-specific
• Individual text mappings
• Different cartographic versions
– the geo-specific (comparative)
• Representation across multiple texts
– and the broadly conceptual/theoretical
• Mapping more abstract, imaginative emotion
responses to landscape

30. Stage 1: Writer-Specific
• Spatial
–
–
–
–
–
Which places were visited?
Can GIS map journeys on specific days?
Can GIS map distances travelled?
Can GIS replicate 3D experience?
How can complex textual histories be
outlined in digital space (on screen)?

31. Writer-Specific: Methods
1. Two primary texts digitised
2. Text is geo-tagged
3. Place names transferred to database
4. Coordinates manually attributed using
Ordnance Survey gazetteer
www.lancaster.ac.uk/mappingthelakes
- textual histories
- contexts
- maps

32. Gray's Base Map
•
Built environments
•
Linearity of tour
•
Gazetteer problems
•
Non-linear
movement
•
Maps out movement
•
But not
alternative
imaginative
exploratory
cartographies
Lancaster University (2014)

33. Gray‟s Tour: Density Maps
•
•
Cannot represent
subjective/emotion
•
No dramatic
reconfiguration of
understanding
•
Visual guide to
imaginative centre
•
Actual places visited
Opens critical
possibilities
First step towards
further thinking
“imaginative spaces”
•
Lancaster University (2014)
More texts may
throw up surprising
patterns

34. Corpus of Lake District writing
Lancaster
University (2014)

35. •
Cartographical
limited
•
Conceptually
limited
•
Visual shorthand
for spatial pattern
in text –
“circumcirsion”
•
Western and rural
emphasis
•
More cluttered than
Gray‟s
Lancaster University (2014)

36. Coleridge‟s Density Maps
•
Consistency in
intensity and depth
of accounts
•
Hot spot confirms
encounters with
high fells is at
imaginative core of
his textual
mappings of LD
Lancaster University (2014)

37. Comparative Maps
•
•
Neither writer visits or
mentions far north
•
Possible cultural
marginalisation of
particular areas
•
Longitudinal division of
the region
•
Physical and imaginative
separation of space
•
Coleridge‟s more prolific
naming of places
•
Lancaster University (2014)
What patterns emerge?
Highlights linearity and
circularity of the two
routes

38. The Naming of Places: A
Smooth Surface Comparison
•
•
Lancaster University (2014)
GIS highlights
potential of
cartographical and
critical thinking
offered by mapping
geo-specific
textual data
Draws attention to
spaces of
heightened
intertextuality
highlighting
locations which
have been the
subject of multiple
writings

39. Mean centres map
•
Spots highlight
geographical
centres of both
tours
•
Ellipses indicate
standard deviation
(66% and 95%)
•
Reinforces notion
that Coleridge's
experiences
concentrate on
small delimited
section of LD while
Gray covers a wider
geographical area
Lancaster University (2014)

40. Exploratory: Gray‟s „Mood Map‟
•
Attempt at critical
possibilities of
„mood mapping‟
•
Potential for
subtleties of
accounts to be
reduced to rigidity
of quant data
•
But this is
exploratory
research
•
Raises cartographic
problems
Lancaster University (2014)

41. Interactive Maps
• Tours with 1815 map
• Tours with standard GE map

42. Mapping the Lakes: Outcomes
• Exploratory: New ways of thinking about the
potential use of GIS technology in literary studies
• Advancing methods of textual digitisation and
encoding
• Need to offer a way of representing the imagined, as
well as the actual, experience of place
• How can GIS technology map out specific, non-linear,
routes through space?
• Movement towards the more exploratory qualitative
mappings rather than the quantitative cartographies
traditionally associated with historical GIS
projects

45. GIS for Quantitative
Landscape Appraisal

46. GIS for qualitative landscape Assessment
in mixed-methods research
46

47. Virtual Landscape Theatre
(James Hutton Institute)
James Hutton Institute (2014)
James Hutton Institute (2014)
GIS-based landscape visualisations in mixed-methods research

48. Dockerty et al (2005)

49. Climate Change
Dockerty et al (2002)
49

50. Climate Change
Dockerty et al (2002)
50

51. 51
Rothwell (2005)

52. QGIS - Conclusions
• Early research is showing potential of QGIS
– Exploring/visualising qualitative data within a spatial
framework
– Exploratory tool that helps generate questions and guide
research
– Opening up GIS and geographic knowledge and information
production to new users and audiences
• A truly qualitative GIS may not be possible
– GIS is an excellent tool for asking what happened, when
and where but it still has little ability to explain
why–which is something that the researcher must examine
by returning to his/her sources
• Moving forward
– Research agenda not well defined
– Beware of technology for its own sake
– Further theoretical development

53. References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Clandinin and Connelly (2000) Narrative Inquiry: Experience and
Story in Qualitative Research. John Wiley & Sons.
Dockerty, T.L, A. A.Lovett, G.Sünnenberg, K.J.Appleton, M.Parry
(2005). Visualising the potential impacts of climate change on rural
landscapes. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 29, 297-320.
James Hutton Institute. (2014). Virtual Landscape Theatre.
http://www.hutton.ac.uk/learning/exhibits/vlt. Accessed 24th
February 2014.
Kwan, M-P. (2008) From oral histories to visual narratives: representing the post-September 11 experiences of the Muslim women in
the USA. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(6): 653-669
Lancaster University (2014). Mapping the Lakes: A Literary GIS.
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/mappingthelakes/. Accessed 24th February
2014.
McDowall, C. (2010). Mapping interviews with open source GIS.
Presented at the “Qualitative GIS: emerging issues and possible
futures” Conference, Cardiff University, 2nd – 4th August 2010.
Pickles, J. (2005). Ground Truth: The Social Implications of
Geographic Information Systems (Mappings: Society/theory/space).
Guildford Press.
Rothwell, J. (2005). “Across the ridge”.
http://www.3dnworld.com/users/96/images/Acrosstheridge.jpg. Accessed
27th February 2014.
Schuurman, N. (2000). Trouble in the Heartland: GIS and its critics
in the 1990s. Progress in Human Geography 24(4): 569-590.