For this weeks blog we are discussing mapping projects and how they are perspectival and subjective. By looking at the mapping projects we can start to make certain assumptions about the data used and the point of view the maps were created to display. For this weeks blog post i decided to use the Locating London mapping project. This mapping project consists of a collection of events that happened in the early and modern eighteenth century. This mapping project is cool because it compiled it all onto a 1746 map so that you would be able to see what and where exactly the events were taking place according the time period. Within the mapping projects collection they have records of crime, poor relief, taxation, elections, local administration, plague deaths and archaeological finds. All of these can all be searched and mapped using this project.
This mapping project is unique because you can specify the dataset that you want the map to show and it allows you to be as broad or specific as you want. Once you pick the data set that you want you want to use it flags the spots/locations from where the events took place and highlights them with red “flags”. This is a really cool feature because it allows you to see the proximity of how close events took place or if there were any themes with location and other geographical factors.
This mapping project seems to reflect someone’s point of view on the mid and early eighteenth century records. You are able to begin to identify this because the data set is solely specified on this time period and mostly just public records. There does not seem to be any cultural or religious bias in the point of view of the creator of this mapping project. This mapping project is both subjective and perspectival in the sense that it reflects the material it contains and also the point of view that is intended.
With this mapping project it reveals crime trends and specific geographical locations within london that are more likely to occur in those areas. If i were to imagine an alternate map it would be one that would change as the time period changed. The map would change as the it went into different time period with a completely new dataset. I think that in this new and alternate map i would have more of a three dimensional factor to it where you could layer and see trends that occurred over centuries. You would be able to see if the crime trend began to disperse or became more concentrated in that specific area.