Visualising qualitative geographies: Advancing qualitative geographical research through visual representation

可视化与地理研究的相关性不断增长。数字化及其新技术、工具和方法的日益普及，以及认识论辩论对社会条件的体现和经验的推进，促进了视觉方面在地理研究实践、交流和传播中变得更加明显和期待。然而，当涉及到可视化时，地理研究的代表性领域表现出强烈的偏见。正如世界范围内丰富的专题地图和图表所显示的那样，可视化在定量地理学中最受欢迎。相比之下，可视化仅用于定性地理研究，特别是在研究过程和结果的表示方面。在德语地理社区，可以观察到一个谨慎的不情愿使用可视化，这反映在缺乏指导和讨论的做法可视化的地理方法文献。这一观察唤起了关于定性地理学和可视化的特殊关系、其特征和基本条件的问题。这两个领域的缺失环节划定了定性地理学的一个关键弱点，关于学科的进步以及研究在社会中的地位和研究传播给更广泛的受众。拟议的网络解决了这些差距，并着手通过建立一个深入的讨论和视觉方法的进一步发展，以推进德语定性地理。其目标是：（1）在地理学界以方法为导向的研究人员网络中，建立一个关于可视化定性研究的批判性和同时具有建设性的辩论，（2）促进定性地理学中可视化的认识论背景和方法论挑战的讨论，（3）通过包括其他学科的知识和与该领域已经先进的国际讨论的交流来丰富这一辩论，（4）通过将艺术和新媒体纳入这一过程，收集和发展定性研究及其结果的视觉表示和交流的方法，格式和方法，（5）推动就科学传播（即学术知识的手段、媒介化和中介）对社会理解和学习的相关性进行更广泛的辩论。

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.