Virtual Cartographies

Digital mapping makes it possible to create layers upon layers of culturally, socially, and historically relevant materials to the recuperation of historical memory on the Iberian peninsula. I have built a digital map called “Virtual Cartographies” that combines information acquired from the Spanish Ministry of Justice—which identifies over 2,600 mass graves located throughout Spain, northern Africa, and the Balearic and Canary Islands—with a collection of digital materials directly linked to specific gravesites. “Virtual Cartographies” is a thick map that combines a variety of digital cultural materials, such as testimonies, novels, videos including feature length documentaries and YouTube short films, narratives from weblogs, archeological reports, newspaper articles, radio programs, and social network sites, to give depth to spaces of mourning and share the various ritualistic practices. By embedding materials that show the exhumation, inhumation, and commemoration processes, “Virtual Cartographies” highlights the ritualistic practices occurring around the Peninsula and ties those directly to the location of specific mass graves sites.

“Virtual Cartographies” is the digital companion to my dissertation titled ”Mass Graves and Remembering through Ritual: Historical Memory in Contemporary Peninsular Literature, Documentary Film, and Digital Media.” In my dissertation I reflect on the ritualistic aspects of mourning practices that accompany the current disinterment and reburial of Francoist victims from mass graves on the Iberian Peninsula. I have built a prototype of ”Virtual Cartographies” by mapping the information acquired from the Spanish government alongside media analyzed in my dissertation. Through the creation process, I have been exploring such topics as: how to display multimedia content on a map, how to designate spatial ambiguity, and pedagogical approaches to using digital maps in the university classroom. The map can be accessed through the “Virtual Cartographies” website.

I recently had the opportunity to attend and present at the Spatial Humanities 2016 Conference in Lancaster, England. The European Research Council supported this major European conference and it was hosted by Lancaster University. The program aimed to explore and demonstrate the contributions to knowledge that digital mapping technologies (GIS platforms) enable within and beyond the humanities. You can read more about the conference in the post I contributed to the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities’ blog titled “Reflections on Spatial Humanities 2016.”

Umap, ESRI StoryMaps, Fusion Tables

2015 – 2017