GIS, Ethnography, and Cultural Research: Putting Maps Back into Ethnographic Mapping

Abstract

This article discusses how geographic information system (GIS) technologies were used to enhance ethnographic methodologies within a cultural research project, Creative Tropical City: Mapping Darwin's Creative Industries. It shows how mapping technologies can broaden the scope of data available via interview practices and produce innovative ways of communicating research results to stakeholder communities. A key component of the interview process was a "mental mapping" exercise whereby interviewees drew sketches, revealing important sites and linkages between people and places. A GIS linked responses to real-world locations, collating and displaying them in meaningful ways. Responses uncovered Darwin's unique geography of creative inspiration-a geography that preferences Darwin's natural environment over sites of urban creative milieu.