{"id":2720,"date":"2017-11-13T13:07:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/?p=2720"},"modified":"2017-11-13T13:07:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:07:50","slug":"the-subjectivity-of-mapping-digital-harlem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/2017\/11\/13\/the-subjectivity-of-mapping-digital-harlem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Subjectivity of Mapping: Digital Harlem"},"content":{"rendered":"

For this week\u2019s mapping blog post, I chose to look at the map of Digital Harlem. The Digital Harlem map attempts to trace the history of black Harlem through several different approaches. First and foremost, users are able to view events, places, and people as they relate to the history of Harlem. More importantly, users are able to adjust the scope of these parameters not only by choosing a specific physical location in Harlem, but also by adjusting the timeline in which they want to focus. Additionally, the map comes with a legend that allows users to identify different buildings such as churches or different social meetups. By using these various tools, users are able to see the expansion and decline of black Harlem throughout time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fundamentally, Turnbull\u2019s work can be used as a lens to study the ontology of the Digital Harlem map. Turnbull argues several things about maps, namely that they can be subjective, they are abstract representations of the literal, they are inherently biased with the creator\u2019s worldview or perspective, and they are almost always incomplete in showing the total breadth of knowledge regarding that particular subject or territory. Similarly, I think many of Turnbull\u2019s arguments can be applied to the Digital Harlem project. One particularly notable aspect of the map is its focus on crime or crime related events such as rapes, robberies, assaults, etc. From this perspective, black Harlem seems much more dangerous, much more violent, because the map chooses to emphasize criminal events, as opposed to community or social events. It would be interesting to see how an event map would look like if it was based on birthdays, fundraisers, and parades, all of which would paint a very different picture of black Harlem. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another aspect which deserves attention is the map creators\u2019 relationship to the community. The Digital Harlem map was created by four researchers from the University of Sydney. Why is this important? The researchers are designing this map from an outsider\u2019s perspective, looking from without. Thus, we can\u2019t be sure if the map serves as an accurate portrayal of how blacks living in Harlem really feel about the history of their community. One interesting thought experiment would be to see how blacks living in Harlem would choose to build their map as opposed to those living outside of Harlem. Therefore, even the relationship of the creator to the space they are mapping can be highly relevant and influential in determining the map\u2019s eventual ontology. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For this week\u2019s mapping blog post, I chose to look at the map of Digital Harlem. The Digital Harlem map<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}