‘Spatializing’ Travel Narratives in the Belgrade Forest Project: Grounded Methods and Reflexive Strategies for Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Journal of Map and Geography Libraries, vol.19, no.1-2, pp.22-54, 2023 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Volume: 19 Issue: 1-2
- Publication Date: 2023
- Doi Number: 10.1080/15420353.2024.2328208
- Journal Name: Journal of Map and Geography Libraries
- Journal Indexes: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Aerospace Database, CAB Abstracts, Communication Abstracts, Environment Index, Geobase, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Library Literature and Information Science, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Metadex, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Civil Engineering Abstracts
- Page Numbers: pp.22-54
- Keywords: corpus linguistics, geospatial data, grounded theory, historical maps, interdisciplinary RDM, interdisciplinary research, landscape studies, place names, qualitative coding, qualitative data analysis, spatial humanities, toponyms
- Istanbul University Affiliated: No
Abstract
The Belgrade Forest Project explores the history of a 5,550-ha forest in the northern suburbs of European Istanbul. The first stage of the project involved creating a reproducible strategy for extracting place names and their geographic locations from 100+ travel narratives that reference the forest area. In this article, we share the initial outcomes of a collaboration between researchers in forestry, geography, and linguistics, as well as a documented methodology, coding protocol, and an open, reusable, and interoperable research dataset of tagged place names. We describe a grounded, pragmatic, reflexive, iterative and communicative approach for interdisciplinary research in spatial humanities. Future project stages will enhance the narrative collection with data from other archival materials, such as maps and historical photographs. Outputs will include a multilingual, geolocated data collection of historical landscape features, places, and agents. The results of the project will enhance our understanding of the forest’s historic and ongoing significance to the region.