Autoethnographic GIS: Creatively Exploring Place and Process

Abstract

Place does not have an easy home in GIS; it is an unstable (and embodied) concept that is often flattened by well-intentioned attempts to stabilize (and disembody) it. In an embodied effort to make sense of an exploratory GIS praxis that may approach place with further fluidity, nuance, and care, I adopt an autoethnographic orientation. This orientation takes shape through two interweaving pathways: a situated exploration of processes of doing such GIS, and an exploration of my own sense of place as it emerges through and within such doings. To facilitate explorations of both place and process of doing, three autoethnographic GIS project drafts are crafted: a written self-as-GIS dialogue, a web map of memories across place and time, and a playful web dashboard of co-inhabitants in place. The project drafts, alongside robust documentation of their construction processes, set the stage for situated examinations of these three place-based explorations and their ontological, epistemological, and methodological insights. Building upon post-representational cartography, I delve into how an autoethnographic orientation to GIS may support nuanced–and perhaps more-than-representational–explorations and sense-makings of geographic phenomena.