Full Citation
Title: Towards a Narrative GIS
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: Research in narrative intelligence applies artificial intelligence approaches to study human ability to organize experience into narrative form (Mateas and Sengers 2003). Narratives are traditionally defined as a series of temporally ordered clauses (Labov 1972, p360-361). The time-centric approach leads to a lesser consideration of space in narrative construction and analysis. In contrast, we advocate a geospatial narrative in order to stress the importance of space and time in understanding the ordering and spatial interaction of events.We define a geospatial narrative as a sequence of events in which space and time are equally important. Narratives are stories that constitutes sequential organizations of events (Franzosi 2010). Each event in a narrative relates sequential or consequential occurrence in space and time. The conventional Geographic Information Systems (GIS) center on information about spatial states of reality, and temporal information is handled as add-ons to spatial objects. Alternatively, we conceptualize a narrative GIS that emphasizes representing and ordering events in space and time as well as functional abilities to construct meaningful geospatial narratives. While an event is a complex, fuzzy term, we start with one basic linguistic element of narratives: action, as the primitive data construct to start building a narrative GIS. By relating action events across space and time, a narrative GIS aims to discover spatiotemporal correlates among actions and relate actions across scales.
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Authors: McIntosh, John; Cantrell, Jacob; Yuan, May; De Lozier, Grant
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other
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