Visualising qualitative geographies: Advancing qualitative geographical research through visual representation

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Visualisations are constantly growing in their relevance for geographical research. An increasing spread of digitalisation and its new techniques, tools and approaches, but also the advancement of epistemological debates towards embodiments and experiences of societal conditions have promoted visual aspects to become more evident and awaited parts of geographic research practice, communication and dissemination. Nevertheless, when it comes to visualisations, the field of representation of geographic research shows a strong bias. As the worldwide abundance of thematic maps and graphs shows, visualisations are most of all popular within quantitatively oriented geography. In contrast, visualisations have merely been used in qualitative geographic research, especially when it comes to the representation of research processes and results. Within the German-speaking geographic community, a cautious reluctance in using visualisations can be observed, which is reflected in a lack of instructions and discussions of practices of visualising in the geographic methods literature. This observation evokes questions on the particular relation of qualitative geography and visualisations, its characteristics and underlying conditions. The missing link of these two fields demarcate a crucial weak point of qualitative geography, with regard to the discipline’s advancement as well as to the position of research in society and communicating research to wider audiences. The proposed network addresses these gaps and sets out to advance German-speaking qualitative geography by establishing an in-depth discussion and further development of a visual approach. The aims are:(1) to establish a critical and simultaneously constructive debate on visualising qualitative research within a network of methods-oriented, mostly early-career researchers within the geographic community,(2) to promote the discussion of the epistemological backgrounds and methodological challenges of visualisation within qualitative geography,(3) to enrich this debate by including the knowledge of other disciplines and the exchange with already advanced international discussions in this area,(4) to gather and develop methods, formats and approaches of visual representation and communication of qualitative research and its results by incorporating arts and new media in the process, and by this,(5) to give impulses to the broader debate on the relevance of the communication of science (i.e. the means, mediatisation and mediation of academic knowledge) for societal understanding and learning.