The Digital Humanities project that caught my interest is the 19th Century Carribean Cholera TimeMap. This particular project’s presentation consists of a few elements. Firstly, there is a time bar, in which we can scroll. Within this time bar, there are two further bars, which are years and months. As one scrolls through the month or year bar, different occurrences will be highlighted according to the legend. The legend themselves consists of 4 occurrences, namely hurricane, tropical storms, news and cholera outbreaks. Secondly, there is a map that indicates on the map (with a pin that corresponds to the legend), where different occurrences occur. As one scrolls through the time bar and the set of occurrences change, the pins on the map will also change accordingly.
This particular project has a dynamic use of maps, which changes according to the time bar. In other words, these two elements of the project presentation have direct relationships. The map is a visualization of the occurrences that took place on a particular time that the user has scrolled to. Ultimately, the map illustrates what happens according to the time bar. Another interesting perspective of how this project uses the map is that it uses Google Maps, which in itself allows for visualization in satellite view or in terrain view. Although the default is by terrain, when one switches to the satellite view, there is more information that could be extracted by having a better idea of geographical details not captured in the terrain view. For instance, on the satellite view, we can see the depths of the water, which will be interesting to know when looking at where hurricanes and tropical storms happen, and whether or not the oceanic circumstances would contribute to repeat hurricanes or tropical storms in certain areas.
In response to Turnbull’s argument that all maps are perspectival and subjective, I believe that this particular digital humanities project is indeed perspectival and subjective. It is an interesting point that Turnbull brought up how despite maps supposedly being unsusceptible to point of views, that maps actually still have some degree of contextual biases. In this project, the authors of the project used Google Maps, which in itself is already an indication that it is made in the 21st century. Furthermore, Google Maps were also made by a group of mappers who have developed their standard methods that is affected by modern day technology. Other groups of people belonging to other time periods in history might not have portrayed the world map that way. This particular project’s map holds some assumptions that the data collected are correct, and that geocoding has been done properly as well. I would imagine that the project was done from the point of view of a 21st century digital humanist, who was curious about geographical trends and frequencies of hurricanes, tropical storms, cholera and news over the 19th century world. Although specific locations were pinpointed, the map did not show the area of influence. The hurricanes, for instance, was pointed as a specific set of coordinates on the map, when in reality, it should be an area where the hurricanes had its adverse effects on people’s lives. The cholera outbreak also shouldn’t have affected one specific set of coordinates on the world map. In other words, the map shows where specific occurrences took place, but it is not accurate in showcasing the area of influence. To solve this problem, an alternate area could be one that illustrates an area instead of a pin. This could also be useful for readers or users to understand the impact of say a hurricane in 1833 compared to that in 1872. It would give us a better picture of how bad a natural disaster is or a cholera outbreak was, and potentially give us some information relating to the number of deaths from these disasters or even how it relates to public resources during the recovery from these disasters.