Abstract
Thematic maps facilitate spatial understanding of patterns and exceptions. Cognitive ability, spatial cognition, and emotional state are related, yet there is little research about map readers’ emotions. Feminist critiques of cartography recognize emotion and affect as legitimate experiences on par with quantitative ways of knowing. We conducted an online survey to measure users’ affective states before and after engaging with three thematic map types. The maps showed data from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality, on the proportion of girls and women aged 15 to 49 who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting. Participants viewed a choropleth, a cartogram, and a repeating icon tile map; completed map‐related tasks; rated certain map qualities; rated their affective states before and after engaging with the maps; and answered open‐ended questions. The maps piqued curiosity and evoked emotions for most users, while some users perceived the thematic maps as clinical or neutral despite the sensitive topic. After viewing the maps, female participants who were affected expressed deeper engagement in their open‐ended comments than males. Traditionally, cartography construes the human experience as male experience and denies or trivializes women's experiences. Our findings corroborate feminist critiques of this disembodiment and entrenched rational rhetoric of maps.
Highlights
As representations of spatial data, maps can support productive access to information and knowledge construction (MacEachren and Kraak 2001), and may draw in readers imaginatively and emotionally (Aitken and Craine 2009)
Emotions go beyond representational means of knowing (Aitken and Craine 2009), their roles in user experience have been largely overlooked in cartography and data visualization research
Our study focuses on the third, and asks whether users’ affective states change by viewing thematic maps because a map is a “potentially unlimited source of emotions for its viewers”
Summary
As representations of spatial data, maps can support productive access to information and knowledge construction (MacEachren and Kraak 2001), and may draw in readers imaginatively and emotionally (Aitken and Craine 2009). Emotions go beyond representational means of knowing (Aitken and Craine 2009), their roles in user experience have been largely overlooked in cartography and data visualization research. Feminist critiques of cartography and data visualization recognize emotion and affect as legitimate ways of knowing (Huffman 1997; D’Ignazio and Klein 2016). Emotions and feminist critiques of science, cartography, and data visualization. Emotions are often trivialized in scientific research as irrational, biased states that are inferior to rational ways of processing information (Roeser 2012). Rational thinking has historically been privileged over emotional experience (Kennedy and Hill 2017)
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