Deep mapping the lived world

Abstract

Despite increased usage, the term deep mapping remains ill-defined, methodologically obtuse, and arguably more a vision of “what could be” rather than a mapping framework ready for use. The admonitions of Lopez (1999) to throw away the “wrong sort” of superficial “thin” maps, and to seek “less suspicious” deep maps, clearly focuses deep mapping on a narratological, if not a phenomenological, mapped representation of space. Part of the allure of deep mapping revolves around the perception that traditional cartographic mapping fails to capture the richness of the lived humanist world and of place. Cartographic content alone, the where and when of spatial information, is challenged in deep mapping by the way in which personal meaning, practices, conflicting viewpoints, and concerns interact with an environment and the objects within it. The cartographic semantics of affective geographies has the potential to provide a visual account of how space and place relate to each other and how personal experiences and the experiences of others reflect and inform actions and the remembering, reconstruction, and representation of space and place. Drawing on the bio-semiotic concept of the umwelt, developed by Jakob von Uexküll, offers an intriguing way forward in deep mapping and for communicating the human experiences of both space and place. To that end this chapter draws on the powerful multi-sensory and interactive virtual-spatial platforms of immersive virtual reality environments to immerse the user in a richly sensuous 3D environment capable of recreating elements of the lived world.