Historical Geographic Information Science (HGIS) is an interdisciplinary methodology which focuses on the spatial components of historical research using the tools of GIS (Knowles et al. 2014, 5). Collaboration between the fields of history and geography using HGIS leads to a new subfield, spatial humanities, that allows for “research that frames historical questions in spatial terms” (Knowles et al. 2014, 5). It is this interdisciplinary collaboration that was the basis of the rather ambitious project, Geographies of the Holocaust. Teams of Holocaust historians and expert geographers worked side by side to examine both quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the scales of analysis of “space and place,” and together successfully demonstrated both the methodology and approach of “co-produced scholarship” (Knowles et al. 2014, 9-10, 231). This collaboration allowed them to make the “geography of oppression” of the Holocaust more visible and show that it was “ideologically, racially, and economically motivated; explicitly enunciated; and materially implemented at all scales of human experience” (Knowles et al. 2014, 3-4).
Each case study presented in Geographies of the Holocaust aimed to examine a different scale of “space and place,” ranging from macro (covering vast areas) to microgeographies (individuals) by using methods of geovisualization, dynamic cartography, and spatial analysis to “unearth spatial patterns and relationships inherent in the data” (Knowles et al. 2014, 6). Using HGIS allows researchers to analyze data in ways that traditional scholarship cannot because it provides a medium that presents many perspectives simultaneously (Knowles et al. 2014, 9).
The researchers were keenly aware that using quantitative methods to examine the horrors of the Holocaust could lead to a dehumanization of their subjects and though they admit that it was something they had to be mindful of, they found that using “quantitative analysis of large data sets” allowed them to discover patterns that provided “frameworks for interpreting personal stories and establishing relationships between them,” thus combining quantitative and qualitative methods to enhance their final product (Knowles et al. 2014, 13).
To briefly look at this immense body of work, we will focus on two case studies from Geographies of the Holocaust that both feature a geospatial visualization but are at opposite ends of the scale analysis spectrum. The first is the above sight-line analysis map which presents a macro scale analysis to show the associations of major SS camps in relation to their subcamps. By creating this visualization of SS camps, the researchers were able to analyze their “patterns of distance and proximity” which raised numerous new questions about the SS camp system in terms of efficiency and control (Knowles et al. 2014, 33-34).
On the other end of the scale analysis spectrum is the above “rope of history,” intended to represent camp evacuations in January 1945. This rope shows both the “physical representation of the geography of the evacuation’s origins, connections, and landmarks of death” as well as a more conceptual representation of a “generalized expression of the prisoners as a geoanchored, bounded community interacting with the landscape and the violence that forced movement produced” (Gigliotti, Masurovsky, and Steiner 2014, 219). Additional visualizations of the symbology used in this case study sought to quantify the testimony of survivors and more accurately represent the chaos of the final days of the Holocaust.
Rather than relying on purely chronological narrative history or purely spatial geographical data to explore the Holocaust, HGIS allowed interdisciplinary collaboration to present methodological and conceptual alternatives to analyze the spatial aspects of genocide in conjunction with the temporal to address new historical questions created through the analysis of scale and visualization (Jaskot and Cole 2014, 227-228).
Bibliography Steiner, Erik, et al. Geographies of the Holocaust. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. muse.jhu.edu/book/30838.
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