Bodies and Structures

Key Question Being Explored in This Insight:

How does the method of “reading across places” employed by Bodies and Structures facilitate multivocal spatial history

View the page of: David Ambaras

View the page of: Kate McDonald

Institution: University of California Santa Barbara

Explore more insights in:

Arts and Humanities Asian History History

Media Literacy Toolkit

Faculti's Media Literacy Toolkit helps viewers critically engage with academic insights by analyzing the research context, identifying perspectives, and encouraging thoughtful evaluation.

Critical Questions to Consider ▼

What assumptions does the research make?
Are there alternative perspectives not explored?
What are the limitations of the research method?

Bias and Perspective Awareness ▼

This research comes from University of California Santa Barbara . Reflect on how the institution's academic focus and research partnerships may shape the questions being explored.

Further Reading ▼

Read the Study

How does the method of “reading across places” employed by Bodies and Structures facilitate multivocal spatial history?

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 21, 2025

Log-in or Sign-up to Faculti
Currently viewing this subject insight as a guest. You have insight(s) remaining for this month. Login to view 8000+ figures on the platform.

Generating Workspace...

Export as PDF

This video describes the collaboration between scholars Kate and the narrator, which began in 2016 at a conference. Both were interested in applying spatial theory and critical human geography to the study of the Japanese Empire in East Asian history. Their discussions led to the formation of a reading group and eventually the idea to create an online platform for annotating primary sources. They discovered the potential of the Scaler platform, which allowed for interactive annotations and multimedia presentations of research.

The scholars sought to move away from a singular narrative of history to one that incorporates multiple perspectives, emphasizing the importance of understanding various historical actors' experiences of space. They aimed to uncover the processes involved in mapping, highlighting how maps are constructed rather than mere representations of reality.

The project also emphasized non-linearity, allowing users to explore materials in a way that encourages personal engagement and interpretation. The digital scholarship project seeks to blend traditional scholarship with new tools to foster collaborative research and a broader understanding of historical contexts.

Ultimately, the scholars highlight the richness of materials available for studying spatial dimensions in history and the importance of collaborative efforts in historical inquiry. They encourage a nuanced understanding of history as an evolving conversation shaped by diverse experiences and interpretations.

Language:

Export as PDF

Export as PDF
Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Genesis of a Collaborative Project**: The project began in 2016 as a collaboration between two historians, Kate and the author, who shared a common interest in applying spatial theory and critical human geography to the study of the Japanese Empire in East Asian history. Their initial discussions led to the formation of a reading group and eventually the idea of creating an online annotated reader of primary sources.

2. **Development of Digital Scholarship**: During the project, the team explored digital tools, especially the open-source platform Scaler, which allowed them to create interactive annotations and multimedia presentations. This digital approach enabled a more nuanced understanding of historical spaces and perspectives, moving beyond traditional print narratives.

3. **Multiplicity of Perspectives**: The project emphasizes the importance of capturing diverse narratives and experiences related to spatial history. By challenging the notion of a single master narrative, the team aimed to showcase how different historical actors interacted with and perceived their environment, particularly in the convideo of modern East Asia.

4. **Engagement with Maps and Spatial Understanding**: The video discusses the complexities of mapping and how maps are constructed through various processes. It highlights that maps should not just be seen as finished artifacts, but rather as reflections of the different experiences and convideos that shaped them. This prompts a deeper inquiry into historical spatial relations.

5. **Collaboration and Future Directions**: The project emphasizes collaboration among historians to create a richer understanding of space and history. It encourages ongoing conversations and interactive engagement with historical sources, allowing users to navigate the material non-linearly and develop their own interpretations. The aim is to foster a dynamic exploration of history that accommodates multiple voices and experiences.

Export as PDF
Here are some key quotes extracted from the video you , which capture the essence of the discussion on spatial theory, digital scholarship, and collaborative historical research:

1. **Encounter and Collaboration:**
- "Started in a random encounter between Kate and me at a conference... we realized that we had the shared interest."

2. **Application of Spatial Theory:**
- "We both were interested in trying to apply the findings of spatial theory and critical human geography to the study of the Japanese Empire in East Asian history."

3. **The Genesis of the Project:**
- "What can we do with this? ... we decided that... to create an online reader of primary sources that could be annotated."

4. **Digital Potential:**
- "We realized the potential that it had to grow... not just put up sources and offer commentary, but actually do interactive annotations linking pathway creation."

5. **Understanding Space:**
- "To get away from a single master narrative... how different actors historically have lived in space, experienced it, perceived it."

6. **Multiplicity of Experiences:**
- "Our fundamental assumption... is that there is no one way of experiencing space in a given time and place."

7. **Challenge of Mapping:**
- "The map itself was constructed... all the processes that go into that need to be uncovered."

8. **Disorientation and Wayfinding:**
- "To give people a sense... of being disoriented and having to find their way through this."

9. **Scope of Materials:**
- "One of the major takeaways... is simply the scope of materials that are available for thinking about space."

10. **Use of Historical Documents:**
- "You can pick up almost any historical document to pull apart and learn more about... how this person went through the world."

11. **Juxtaposition of Sources:**
- "What many of us came away with... was the incredible utility of juxtaposing these places and these kinds of sources."

12. **Transformative Potential of Digital Scholarship:**
- "By simply putting up your sources and interrogating your sources... you can begin to think about your own project differently."

13. **Non-linearity in Scholarship:**
- "What we started with... is the idea of non-linearity... show the different threads and how they're moving in different ways."

14. **Collaborative Conversation:**
- "We went into this... If you assume that space is a simultaneity of stories... we are actually aiming for the conversation."

15. **The Role of the Map:**
- "The map is a process, but that ultimately it becomes this kind of formal finished artifact."

These quotes collectively illustrate the themes of collaborative research, the application of digital tools in scholarship, the complexity of understanding spatial narratives, and the importance of diverse perspectives in historical analysis.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:90000

1
00:00:00.035 --> 00:00:03.165
Started in a, a random encounter between Kate

2
00:00:03.165 --> 00:00:04.525
and me at a conference.

3
00:00:04.985 --> 00:00:08.365
Um, we both were separately, this must have been about 2016.

4
00:00:08.465 --> 00:00:13.005
We both were, on our own interested in trying to apply,

5
00:00:13.545 --> 00:00:15.365
the findings of spatial theory

6
00:00:15.385 --> 00:00:17.725
and critical human geography to the study

7
00:00:17.725 --> 00:00:20.965
of the Japanese Empire in East Asian history,

8
00:00:20.965 --> 00:00:22.885
in the modern area era in particular.

9
00:00:23.465 --> 00:00:26.885
Um, and Kate gave a paper about Manchuria at a conference,

10
00:00:26.885 --> 00:00:28.565
and I asked a question, then afterwards went up

11
00:00:28.565 --> 00:00:29.565
and started talking to her,

12
00:00:29.565 --> 00:00:31.245
and then we realized that we had the shared interest.

13
00:00:31.825 --> 00:00:34.525
Um, so we decided to do a little reading together.

14
00:00:34.545 --> 00:00:36.325
We organized a reading group,

15
00:00:36.325 --> 00:00:38.125
in North Carolina, and Kate came over.

16
00:00:38.225 --> 00:00:41.125
And then as we were wrapping that up, we asked ourselves,

17
00:00:41.195 --> 00:00:42.205
what can we do with this?

18
00:00:43.065 --> 00:00:46.805
And we thought that one thing that would be interesting was

19
00:00:47.265 --> 00:00:50.125
to create an online reader of primary sources

20
00:00:50.475 --> 00:00:53.245
that could be annotated and, and, and so forth.

21
00:00:53.905 --> 00:00:56.805
But, as we were working with that, we decided

22
00:00:56.805 --> 00:00:59.525
that there were more possibilities once we started thinking

23
00:00:59.525 --> 00:01:00.685
digitally about everything.

24
00:01:01.105 --> 00:01:03.045
Um, we had a couple of workshops with a number

25
00:01:03.045 --> 00:01:04.565
of scholars from across the country

26
00:01:04.705 --> 00:01:05.885
and then from further afield

27
00:01:06.585 --> 00:01:08.765
and, we were playing around with different tools

28
00:01:09.065 --> 00:01:12.325
and ultimately we, we came across scaler, this platform

29
00:01:12.325 --> 00:01:14.245
that's an open source platform,

30
00:01:14.245 --> 00:01:15.845
and realized the wis scaler

31
00:01:15.845 --> 00:01:17.525
and the potential that it had to grow.

32
00:01:17.745 --> 00:01:20.405
We could do things like not just put up sources

33
00:01:20.505 --> 00:01:22.885
and offer commentary, but actually do,

34
00:01:22.915 --> 00:01:26.325
interactive annotations linking pathway creation,

35
00:01:26.645 --> 00:01:29.765
a multimedia, presentation of research.

36
00:01:29.945 --> 00:01:31.445
So we began to build from there,

37
00:01:31.505 --> 00:01:34.245
and eventually we wound up getting a national endowment

38
00:01:34.245 --> 00:01:36.325
for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement grant

39
00:01:36.715 --> 00:01:39.405
that enabled us to not only develop our project further,

40
00:01:39.545 --> 00:01:42.325
but also help to build the scaler platform in new ways.

41
00:01:42.785 --> 00:01:45.725
So that's really, sort of the genesis of this

42
00:01:46.385 --> 00:01:48.565
and mean thinking behind it, was to try

43
00:01:48.825 --> 00:01:53.085
and, offer ways of thinking about space

44
00:01:53.745 --> 00:01:55.805
in the particular context of modern East Asia.

45
00:01:55.945 --> 00:01:57.885
Um, but think about space as

46
00:01:57.885 --> 00:01:59.805
what Doreen Massey has called the,

47
00:01:59.805 --> 00:02:01.445
simultaneity of stories so far.

48
00:02:01.475 --> 00:02:03.325
That is to say, to get away from a single

49
00:02:03.905 --> 00:02:07.245
master narrative in which one person is gazing down at a map

50
00:02:07.245 --> 00:02:10.405
and can claim to see everything, to think much more about

51
00:02:10.465 --> 00:02:14.125
how different actors historically have lived in space,

52
00:02:14.235 --> 00:02:17.605
experienced it, perceived it, conceived of it,

53
00:02:17.865 --> 00:02:20.965
and then how these different experiences and,

54
00:02:20.965 --> 00:02:23.165
and movements in space have affected each other

55
00:02:23.225 --> 00:02:25.845
to create these broader frameworks with which we're familiar

56
00:02:26.025 --> 00:02:27.685
and some with which we're not familiar as

57
00:02:27.685 --> 00:02:28.685
Historians. We're

58
00:02:28.685 --> 00:02:30.765
used to telling histories about places.

59
00:02:31.465 --> 00:02:33.845
But the fundamental insight of this,

60
00:02:34.065 --> 00:02:36.085
of the spatial humanities and the works that David

61
00:02:36.085 --> 00:02:38.405
and I were reading together in North Carolina is that

62
00:02:39.845 --> 00:02:42.925
who you are in time, in a particular time

63
00:02:42.925 --> 00:02:44.245
and place right, really affects your

64
00:02:44.245 --> 00:02:45.645
understanding of that space.

65
00:02:45.705 --> 00:02:47.845
It affects how you move through it.

66
00:02:48.185 --> 00:02:50.365
Um, it affects how people respond to you.

67
00:02:50.825 --> 00:02:54.405
And so we needed to kind of go from the ground up

68
00:02:55.225 --> 00:02:59.525
to bring a multiplicity of perspectives in, into being so

69
00:02:59.525 --> 00:03:02.285
that we could then understand what the spaces of, you know,

70
00:03:02.285 --> 00:03:03.645
east Asian history really were.

71
00:03:03.985 --> 00:03:06.605
And that was the, the appeal of, say, going to a digital,

72
00:03:07.265 --> 00:03:09.325
format rather than say a print

73
00:03:09.325 --> 00:03:10.685
where once we write it, it stuck.

74
00:03:11.225 --> 00:03:13.085
Um, with digital, we could play around a lot more.

75
00:03:13.395 --> 00:03:16.445
It's easy to kind of assign a particular,

76
00:03:16.835 --> 00:03:18.085
spatial understanding

77
00:03:18.425 --> 00:03:21.445
or say, point to a particular infrastructure, say railroads

78
00:03:21.465 --> 00:03:25.605
as being the most important kind of spatial framework

79
00:03:25.625 --> 00:03:26.885
for a given time or place.

80
00:03:27.305 --> 00:03:28.445
But actually we have

81
00:03:28.445 --> 00:03:31.445
to also look at everybody else who's moving around in

82
00:03:31.445 --> 00:03:32.765
that particular time and place

83
00:03:32.825 --> 00:03:35.085
and find out actually what was the dominant

84
00:03:36.025 --> 00:03:37.325
in terms of, say, transport.

85
00:03:37.325 --> 00:03:38.965
What was the dominant way that they moved around?

86
00:03:39.225 --> 00:03:42.165
Or for example, for railroads, some people use them

87
00:03:42.165 --> 00:03:44.085
to go from point A to point B,

88
00:03:44.085 --> 00:03:45.485
but some people use them to work.

89
00:03:45.545 --> 00:03:47.445
And some people found that going from point A

90
00:03:47.445 --> 00:03:49.685
to point B was actually not very interest, not very easy,

91
00:03:50.115 --> 00:03:52.445
depending on who they, what kind of body they were in.

92
00:03:52.945 --> 00:03:55.085
Um, and this was true, for example,

93
00:03:55.085 --> 00:03:57.925
in the Japanese empire, but it's also true in the history

94
00:03:57.985 --> 00:04:00.565
of, the United States with Jim Crow laws and,

95
00:04:00.585 --> 00:04:01.605
and slavery, right?

96
00:04:01.705 --> 00:04:04.805
So we wanted to have to, to create a way where we were,

97
00:04:04.805 --> 00:04:07.325
where our, our fundamental assumption right

98
00:04:07.345 --> 00:04:10.365
of this project is that there is no one way

99
00:04:11.065 --> 00:04:13.365
of experiencing space in a given time and place.

100
00:04:13.865 --> 00:04:17.045
And given that multiplicity of experiences,

101
00:04:17.265 --> 00:04:21.445
how can cre we create a history that is multifocal, right?

102
00:04:21.445 --> 00:04:23.045
That, that contains narratives

103
00:04:23.045 --> 00:04:24.525
that are grounded in these different,

104
00:04:24.735 --> 00:04:25.845
these different experiences.

105
00:04:26.305 --> 00:04:29.645
We tend to think of maps, as completed artifacts.

106
00:04:30.495 --> 00:04:33.085
There, there's something that's been produced and it's there

107
00:04:33.185 --> 00:04:36.165
and it offers you a view of a certain kind of reality

108
00:04:36.185 --> 00:04:38.445
or a certain kind of, ideological position.

109
00:04:38.905 --> 00:04:40.885
But the map itself was constructed.

110
00:04:41.305 --> 00:04:43.365
The map itself was made

111
00:04:43.365 --> 00:04:45.845
through various processes from sending out somebody into

112
00:04:45.845 --> 00:04:49.485
vary in hospital conditions, to, to survey territory,

113
00:04:49.865 --> 00:04:52.725
to disputes over what kind of symbols to use on a map

114
00:04:52.745 --> 00:04:54.405
to disputes over whose map it was

115
00:04:54.465 --> 00:04:55.925
and what usage it would be put to.

116
00:04:56.305 --> 00:04:59.365
And all of these things were at various points on the map,

117
00:04:59.385 --> 00:05:00.845
but then they get elided so

118
00:05:00.845 --> 00:05:02.285
that at the end you get this finished product

119
00:05:02.315 --> 00:05:03.965
that looks like a map where three quarters

120
00:05:03.965 --> 00:05:05.005
of the world is colored in pink because

121
00:05:05.005 --> 00:05:06.445
of the British dominated, for example.

122
00:05:07.185 --> 00:05:09.965
Um, but all the processes that go into

123
00:05:09.965 --> 00:05:11.445
that need to be uncovered.

124
00:05:11.985 --> 00:05:15.125
So at one level, there's a challenge to the, the sort

125
00:05:15.125 --> 00:05:17.765
of graphical narrative, that one can,

126
00:05:18.205 --> 00:05:20.725
a certain mastery over the over space, over the world

127
00:05:20.785 --> 00:05:22.525
by putting it into a gridded form.

128
00:05:22.705 --> 00:05:25.885
At the same time, it, the notion of mapping itself has

129
00:05:25.885 --> 00:05:27.285
to be called into question.

130
00:05:27.425 --> 00:05:29.045
So we, we thought a lot with the work

131
00:05:29.045 --> 00:05:30.645
of Edward Casey on this, and,

132
00:05:30.665 --> 00:05:32.085
and Edward Casey argues

133
00:05:32.085 --> 00:05:35.725
that mapping itself is just a process of, of way finding

134
00:05:36.115 --> 00:05:40.125
that one is constantly encountering places in space

135
00:05:40.125 --> 00:05:41.205
and one has to make their way through.

136
00:05:41.205 --> 00:05:42.685
And our fundamental bodily

137
00:05:42.785 --> 00:05:46.045
or orientations our front back, left, right, up, down,

138
00:05:46.415 --> 00:05:48.045
we're always orienting ourselves even

139
00:05:48.045 --> 00:05:49.085
if we're not thinking about it.

140
00:05:49.465 --> 00:05:53.205
So what we hope to do with the, the project, online is

141
00:05:53.205 --> 00:05:55.525
to give people a sense, first of all, of being disoriented

142
00:05:55.525 --> 00:05:56.885
and having to find their way through this

143
00:05:57.145 --> 00:05:59.805
to consciously engage with these spaces

144
00:05:59.865 --> 00:06:01.405
and spatial histories,

145
00:06:01.405 --> 00:06:03.525
but also to think about historical actors might have dealt

146
00:06:03.525 --> 00:06:06.045
with that so that, for example,

147
00:06:06.205 --> 00:06:07.965
a borderer may seem self-evident to us,

148
00:06:08.025 --> 00:06:10.085
but for somebody encountering a border for the first time,

149
00:06:10.155 --> 00:06:12.365
it's not, and they have to figure out how to, how

150
00:06:12.365 --> 00:06:14.485
to approach it, how to, they may have knowledge

151
00:06:14.485 --> 00:06:16.085
that helps 'em to do that, but they may not.

152
00:06:16.135 --> 00:06:18.485
There are all kinds of, uncertainties in the process.

153
00:06:18.625 --> 00:06:20.205
And we wanted as much as possible

154
00:06:20.305 --> 00:06:22.525
to give our contributors the chance

155
00:06:22.545 --> 00:06:24.165
to flesh out those uncertainties or,

156
00:06:24.185 --> 00:06:26.205
or play with those uncertainties in their work.

157
00:06:26.665 --> 00:06:29.485
One of the major takeaways, the kind of major insights

158
00:06:29.485 --> 00:06:33.565
that's come from this project is simply the scope

159
00:06:34.505 --> 00:06:38.405
of materials that are available for thinking,

160
00:06:39.325 --> 00:06:42.285
thinking with space, for thinking, through

161
00:06:42.285 --> 00:06:45.445
and analyzing various historical actors' experiences

162
00:06:45.465 --> 00:06:47.805
of space in the context of modern East Asia.

163
00:06:48.185 --> 00:06:52.245
Um, that is to say that it is something that is fundamental

164
00:06:53.185 --> 00:06:56.045
to how human beings experience the world.

165
00:06:56.785 --> 00:06:59.885
And it's also been very important for modern,

166
00:07:00.025 --> 00:07:03.525
for modern states, for modern institutions, to try

167
00:07:03.545 --> 00:07:05.925
to kind of teach people certain ways of moving

168
00:07:05.925 --> 00:07:08.205
through the world and, things that are the right way

169
00:07:08.205 --> 00:07:09.205
to be the wrong way to be.

170
00:07:09.265 --> 00:07:11.485
Here's what the globe looks like.

171
00:07:11.485 --> 00:07:13.405
Here's how we're divided up spatially as

172
00:07:13.505 --> 00:07:14.645
as human beings, for example.

173
00:07:14.705 --> 00:07:16.485
And, and, you know, David was talking about

174
00:07:16.555 --> 00:07:18.085
mapping, and that's one part of it.

175
00:07:18.385 --> 00:07:20.165
So one of the big takeaways is that

176
00:07:20.705 --> 00:07:23.085
you can pick up almost any historical document

177
00:07:23.745 --> 00:07:26.925
and find some kind of spatial content that you can then use

178
00:07:26.985 --> 00:07:31.445
to pull apart and learn more about how this person,

179
00:07:32.025 --> 00:07:34.485
or how this group of people went through the world.

180
00:07:34.785 --> 00:07:37.885
And by learning that you get a different understanding of

181
00:07:37.915 --> 00:07:40.325
what that decade, right, or that,

182
00:07:40.585 --> 00:07:43.325
or that area, actually meant to people.

183
00:07:43.905 --> 00:07:48.005
So to, to give you, a more concrete

184
00:07:48.755 --> 00:07:52.265
example, our modules, we all,

185
00:07:52.285 --> 00:07:54.705
all we asked our contributors to do was, was pick a source,

186
00:07:55.205 --> 00:07:57.745
and elaborate on its spatial character.

187
00:07:57.765 --> 00:08:00.425
And we ended up with modules on,

188
00:08:00.425 --> 00:08:05.025
department stores in 1920s, Japan, biological warfare in,

189
00:08:05.445 --> 00:08:09.505
Vietnam during the kind of Vietnam, war era,

190
00:08:10.265 --> 00:08:14.465
smallpox vaccination campaigns in early modern Japan,

191
00:08:15.085 --> 00:08:18.625
women transgressive mobility, women moving back

192
00:08:18.625 --> 00:08:20.985
and forth from Japan to China and back again.

193
00:08:20.985 --> 00:08:23.105
And all of the discourse that that created,

194
00:08:23.105 --> 00:08:26.185
political manifestos about how,

195
00:08:26.185 --> 00:08:28.465
people in Japan should be thinking about the space

196
00:08:28.465 --> 00:08:29.545
of the Japanese empire.

197
00:08:29.985 --> 00:08:33.585
I mean, the, the archive got humongous right away.

198
00:08:34.005 --> 00:08:36.745
Um, and it's just, it was so exciting then to sit together

199
00:08:36.745 --> 00:08:37.985
with these other historians

200
00:08:37.985 --> 00:08:39.745
and talk about what we were each coming

201
00:08:40.325 --> 00:08:41.745
to find in our materials,

202
00:08:41.845 --> 00:08:44.665
and then what, how did that change our understanding

203
00:08:44.725 --> 00:08:48.025
of East Asia as a place that people lived and,

204
00:08:48.605 --> 00:08:50.745
and, you know, understood themselves in.

205
00:08:50.885 --> 00:08:52.465
So we have a lot of different things

206
00:08:52.465 --> 00:08:53.665
that, that people talked about.

207
00:08:54.285 --> 00:08:56.125
But what, I and Kate

208
00:08:56.185 --> 00:08:58.165
and a lot of our contributors came away with,

209
00:08:58.185 --> 00:09:00.725
and we have a, a page on the website called what we Learned,

210
00:09:00.725 --> 00:09:03.205
where a number of us have, have offered our reflections.

211
00:09:03.745 --> 00:09:07.605
Um, but what many of us came away with was the incredible

212
00:09:08.635 --> 00:09:10.525
utility of juxtaposing these places

213
00:09:11.025 --> 00:09:13.565
and these kinds of sources so that somebody

214
00:09:13.765 --> 00:09:16.725
who was writing about drugstore networks, you know,

215
00:09:16.725 --> 00:09:19.205
retail drugstore networks in the 1910s

216
00:09:19.205 --> 00:09:21.805
and twenties in Japan could find something

217
00:09:21.805 --> 00:09:25.685
to think about in, say, Republican of Chinese,

218
00:09:26.445 --> 00:09:27.525
Mongolian settlement plans.

219
00:09:28.315 --> 00:09:30.855
Um, you know, the person working on department stores could

220
00:09:30.855 --> 00:09:35.455
think about, a Taiwanese activist's view of the world

221
00:09:35.875 --> 00:09:38.895
and use that these, some were working on,

222
00:09:39.415 --> 00:09:42.855
airlines in Manchuria under the Japanese could inform the

223
00:09:42.855 --> 00:09:44.575
thinking of somebody working on,

224
00:09:44.575 --> 00:09:47.415
German warfare in Vietnam in the 1950s and vice versa.

225
00:09:48.195 --> 00:09:52.575
So it was this, this, relationship among the sources

226
00:09:52.675 --> 00:09:54.895
and among the topics and among the categories

227
00:09:54.895 --> 00:09:58.415
that we came up with, to, to make sense of it, that

228
00:09:58.415 --> 00:10:00.335
that was really productive for the participants

229
00:10:00.335 --> 00:10:02.095
and we hope will be productive more generally.

230
00:10:02.315 --> 00:10:05.495
For example, we came up with various conceptual categories

231
00:10:05.515 --> 00:10:08.135
for a tag map that, that could be applied

232
00:10:08.155 --> 00:10:11.735
to the various elements of everyone's, projects.

233
00:10:12.555 --> 00:10:14.895
And, we thought about the different kinds

234
00:10:14.895 --> 00:10:17.055
of rationalities to give one example, the different kinds

235
00:10:17.055 --> 00:10:18.695
of rationalities that are apparent

236
00:10:19.275 --> 00:10:22.055
or that can be read from, the different sources

237
00:10:22.155 --> 00:10:23.655
and processes that people were looking at.

238
00:10:24.035 --> 00:10:26.935
And so there are rationalities that are about,

239
00:10:27.595 --> 00:10:30.335
the rationality of, of market and commerce, right?

240
00:10:30.335 --> 00:10:33.095
There are rationalities about, territorial domination

241
00:10:33.095 --> 00:10:34.095
by political entities.

242
00:10:34.505 --> 00:10:36.655
There are rationalities that are biological.

243
00:10:36.875 --> 00:10:38.495
How do germs move, for example?

244
00:10:38.505 --> 00:10:40.615
There are rational different kinds of rationalities.

245
00:10:40.915 --> 00:10:45.455
Um, and, teasing those out through these conversations

246
00:10:45.595 --> 00:10:47.255
and then reapplying them to say, yeah,

247
00:10:47.335 --> 00:10:51.745
I can see this work through that lens was, was very useful.

248
00:10:51.745 --> 00:10:53.985
So that's one example. I think another was just

249
00:10:53.985 --> 00:10:56.105
to think about, vision,

250
00:10:56.685 --> 00:10:58.265
the ways in which people see space.

251
00:10:58.265 --> 00:11:00.665
So we, we tried to get out these abstract categories,

252
00:11:00.665 --> 00:11:01.985
these abstract processes

253
00:11:02.295 --> 00:11:05.345
that then would have greater utility beyond one

254
00:11:05.425 --> 00:11:08.385
or two, modules, one or two sources

255
00:11:08.885 --> 00:11:12.205
In the field of history, in your own sort

256
00:11:12.205 --> 00:11:13.885
of area context and time and place.

257
00:11:14.025 --> 00:11:16.045
You, you get comfortable thinking that,

258
00:11:16.045 --> 00:11:18.805
when we're talking about, the kind of politics

259
00:11:18.805 --> 00:11:22.245
of mapping, we're talking about, you know,

260
00:11:22.245 --> 00:11:25.245
imperial mapping practices that, that go ahead and, and,

261
00:11:25.345 --> 00:11:28.045
and territorialized other people's places, you know,

262
00:11:28.045 --> 00:11:29.605
and put it inside the nation as if it's not

263
00:11:29.605 --> 00:11:30.725
a problematic thing to do, right?

264
00:11:31.025 --> 00:11:32.525
Or when we're talking about networks,

265
00:11:32.525 --> 00:11:35.765
what we're always talking about must be commodity networks.

266
00:11:36.145 --> 00:11:37.965
Um, and what we did with the tag map,

267
00:11:37.965 --> 00:11:40.485
when we got everybody together, to fi they,

268
00:11:40.485 --> 00:11:42.845
they would figure out, well, how, what unites us?

269
00:11:42.845 --> 00:11:44.645
There's so much about time and place and,

270
00:11:44.785 --> 00:11:47.525
and language even that might, that might draw barriers

271
00:11:47.525 --> 00:11:49.845
amongst our projects, but what brings us together spatially?

272
00:11:50.265 --> 00:11:53.205
Um, and then we would find out for example, that, you know,

273
00:11:53.205 --> 00:11:56.765
Mar Eer is talking about, the, the spatial practices

274
00:11:56.765 --> 00:11:58.765
and the geography of inoculation.

275
00:12:00.045 --> 00:12:02.985
The idea of time became really important to her story

276
00:12:02.985 --> 00:12:05.865
because of course the smallpox only would,

277
00:12:05.915 --> 00:12:07.465
would be good for six or seven days.

278
00:12:07.465 --> 00:12:09.345
So they had to organize all the vaccine vaccination

279
00:12:09.665 --> 00:12:13.445
campaigns based on how quickly you could get a child

280
00:12:13.505 --> 00:12:15.245
who had the, who had the pustule

281
00:12:15.245 --> 00:12:17.045
that could be usually inoculation right, to the next place,

282
00:12:17.415 --> 00:12:19.845
which then prompted Mitch also to think about

283
00:12:20.595 --> 00:12:21.685
what were the rationalities

284
00:12:21.685 --> 00:12:24.365
behind his geography when he was talking about all

285
00:12:24.365 --> 00:12:26.685
of the knowledge production about biological warfare.

286
00:12:26.745 --> 00:12:29.045
And he was like, well, it's not about time so much for me,

287
00:12:29.105 --> 00:12:31.885
but really there's, there's an emotional component to this

288
00:12:31.905 --> 00:12:34.485
and the different registers that people are using

289
00:12:34.585 --> 00:12:37.205
to generate the knowledge in these different sites from the,

290
00:12:37.475 --> 00:12:40.445
from the farmers who are reporting these attacks in the

291
00:12:40.445 --> 00:12:42.325
fields to then get going all the way through

292
00:12:42.325 --> 00:12:43.805
to scientific communities on the other

293
00:12:43.805 --> 00:12:45.285
half of the globe, right?

294
00:12:45.305 --> 00:12:48.445
So as researchers, what we want people to get out

295
00:12:48.685 --> 00:12:52.165
of it is an opportunity to ask questions, right?

296
00:12:52.225 --> 00:12:55.405
To be, to be made, to find a common ground

297
00:12:55.475 --> 00:12:58.685
that then shines new light on things that you thought of

298
00:12:58.785 --> 00:13:02.765
as familiar and fully understood to you, the expert, right?

299
00:13:02.765 --> 00:13:03.725
But maybe actually there's other

300
00:13:03.725 --> 00:13:05.405
ways you could be thinking about it. Something

301
00:13:05.405 --> 00:13:08.805
About the platform itself is, is,

302
00:13:08.805 --> 00:13:10.365
offers potential for research.

303
00:13:10.395 --> 00:13:13.765
That is to say, by simply putting up your, your sources

304
00:13:14.105 --> 00:13:15.405
and interrogating your sources

305
00:13:15.435 --> 00:13:17.485
through these different media rich techniques,

306
00:13:17.485 --> 00:13:19.525
adding annotation is drawing linkages.

307
00:13:19.525 --> 00:13:21.925
Developing a conceptual framework, you can begin

308
00:13:21.925 --> 00:13:23.845
to think about your own project differently.

309
00:13:24.065 --> 00:13:25.925
You can begin think about,

310
00:13:26.595 --> 00:13:28.885
what you might have excluded in a more traditional

311
00:13:29.255 --> 00:13:31.765
text-based monograph or simply text-based monograph

312
00:13:31.905 --> 00:13:33.445
and how that might be worked back in

313
00:13:33.445 --> 00:13:35.205
because you now have digital space to do it.

314
00:13:35.205 --> 00:13:37.365
And what that allows you to do in terms

315
00:13:37.365 --> 00:13:39.565
of refining your questions, expanding your questions,

316
00:13:39.565 --> 00:13:41.605
drawing connections to the projects,

317
00:13:41.605 --> 00:13:44.685
and once you get that across a number of projects

318
00:13:44.805 --> 00:13:47.725
that are coexisting in this, on this platform,

319
00:13:47.775 --> 00:13:50.205
there are all kinds of juxtapositions that could be,

320
00:13:50.465 --> 00:13:51.765
quite fruitful.

321
00:13:51.915 --> 00:13:54.125
When we say digital scholarship, it's so vast,

322
00:13:54.275 --> 00:13:56.045
there's no way to simply categorize it.

323
00:13:56.045 --> 00:13:59.125
What we do, is one, one thing

324
00:13:59.125 --> 00:14:01.245
that some people would say is simply content management

325
00:14:01.245 --> 00:14:03.325
that scalers the content management platform.

326
00:14:03.625 --> 00:14:04.725
Uh, somebody who's working

327
00:14:04.725 --> 00:14:06.605
with big data analytics would look at digital

328
00:14:06.605 --> 00:14:08.125
scholarship in a very different way.

329
00:14:08.125 --> 00:14:10.925
People who are assembling community archives would look

330
00:14:10.925 --> 00:14:12.005
at it in a very different way.

331
00:14:12.465 --> 00:14:15.365
Uh, and actually Kate and I have co-edited a special,

332
00:14:15.615 --> 00:14:18.045
forum for the Journal of Asian Studies in which we discussed

333
00:14:18.045 --> 00:14:20.965
this and have got contributors from various parts

334
00:14:20.965 --> 00:14:23.365
of Asian studies coming to talk about projects that,

335
00:14:23.365 --> 00:14:24.725
that are ongoing or,

336
00:14:25.195 --> 00:14:27.365
that offer interesting examples of what can be done.

337
00:14:27.865 --> 00:14:30.365
Um, so I think the digital scholarship itself is quite vast

338
00:14:30.425 --> 00:14:31.845
and, and, and we lay no claim

339
00:14:31.905 --> 00:14:35.245
to authority over the field in any way, shape, or form.

340
00:14:35.745 --> 00:14:40.445
Um, but that said, what we tried to do was combine sort

341
00:14:40.485 --> 00:14:43.245
of the best of traditional artisanal, for want

342
00:14:43.245 --> 00:14:45.205
of a better word, monographic scholarship

343
00:14:45.675 --> 00:14:48.045
with new digital tools that allow people

344
00:14:48.105 --> 00:14:52.325
to expand upon their, their, their capacity

345
00:14:52.345 --> 00:14:54.085
to develop narratives and arguments.

346
00:14:54.145 --> 00:14:57.845
And so, one of the things that, that we started with

347
00:14:57.865 --> 00:15:00.685
and have consistently pushed is the idea of non-linearity

348
00:15:01.035 --> 00:15:03.685
that, rather than simply go from point A

349
00:15:03.685 --> 00:15:05.885
through point C, is if there's a clean line we can take

350
00:15:05.895 --> 00:15:08.045
apart the materials that we would've had

351
00:15:08.045 --> 00:15:09.925
to pack into a single linear narrative

352
00:15:09.925 --> 00:15:11.165
for the most part in a print book

353
00:15:11.165 --> 00:15:13.125
or a print article, we can unpack that

354
00:15:13.145 --> 00:15:14.365
and show the different threads

355
00:15:14.365 --> 00:15:15.685
and how they're moving in different ways,

356
00:15:15.785 --> 00:15:19.365
but, people can work through them as they see fit

357
00:15:19.745 --> 00:15:21.685
and draw their own sort of lessons from that.

358
00:15:21.685 --> 00:15:24.445
There are bigger arguments that each of our authors wants

359
00:15:24.445 --> 00:15:25.485
to make, but

360
00:15:25.485 --> 00:15:29.525
nonetheless, we offer space for the, the reader

361
00:15:29.625 --> 00:15:32.445
or the user to engage with this on their own terms

362
00:15:32.865 --> 00:15:35.285
and construct their own possible ways through the material.

363
00:15:35.345 --> 00:15:38.045
So I think that that's an important part of the process.

364
00:15:38.195 --> 00:15:39.805
It's what the digital offers in some ways

365
00:15:39.805 --> 00:15:42.005
that the print version has not in the past.

366
00:15:42.265 --> 00:15:44.765
One of the elements of the digital scholarship experience

367
00:15:44.795 --> 00:15:47.725
that I, David and I both want to keep,

368
00:15:47.785 --> 00:15:49.885
and if all historical scholarship went forward

369
00:15:49.885 --> 00:15:50.925
like this, it would be great.

370
00:15:51.025 --> 00:15:54.285
That's the collaborative element of it. We went into this.

371
00:15:54.625 --> 00:15:57.085
If you assume that space is a simultaneity of stories

372
00:15:57.185 --> 00:16:00.605
so far, you cannot possibly figure it all out on your own

373
00:16:01.825 --> 00:16:03.415
historians work.

374
00:16:03.615 --> 00:16:05.935
I mean, we, we, we, it is a conversation,

375
00:16:05.965 --> 00:16:07.775
this thing called professional history.

376
00:16:08.435 --> 00:16:09.855
The product ends up looking like

377
00:16:09.855 --> 00:16:10.935
the work of a single person.

378
00:16:11.435 --> 00:16:13.495
And so what we did from the get go is say,

379
00:16:13.965 --> 00:16:17.415
this is only possible because we put 10 brains together

380
00:16:17.435 --> 00:16:18.855
and then 17 brains together.

381
00:16:19.305 --> 00:16:22.215
We're not aiming for here is what space is.

382
00:16:22.865 --> 00:16:25.335
We're actually aiming for the conversation.

383
00:16:26.035 --> 00:16:28.695
And that's what we put front and center with the Bodies

384
00:16:28.755 --> 00:16:32.895
and Structures Project First 10 Brains and then 17 Brains

385
00:16:33.275 --> 00:16:35.815
and now, and then all with the Lenses tool,

386
00:16:35.815 --> 00:16:38.375
really inviting users to engage with

387
00:16:38.375 --> 00:16:39.615
what we've put out there and make

388
00:16:39.615 --> 00:16:40.815
their own maps going forward.

389
00:16:41.235 --> 00:16:44.415
And it's through that ever evolving conversation that we get

390
00:16:44.415 --> 00:16:49.095
to a richer, more nuanced understanding of how humanity

391
00:16:50.035 --> 00:16:51.175
has experienced

392
00:16:52.475 --> 00:16:54.685
History Hearing Kate talk about how,

393
00:16:56.955 --> 00:16:59.815
the traditional way is to, to sort of mask all the process

394
00:17:00.075 --> 00:17:03.135
and just show the finished product by one author reminds me

395
00:17:03.135 --> 00:17:04.895
of, you know, it resonates with what I said earlier about

396
00:17:04.895 --> 00:17:07.095
the map, that the map is a process,

397
00:17:07.115 --> 00:17:08.855
but that ultimately it becomes this kind

398
00:17:08.855 --> 00:17:10.695
of formal finished artifact

399
00:17:10.795 --> 00:17:13.015
and that people only look at that without interrogating

400
00:17:13.015 --> 00:17:14.055
what went on to produce it.

401
00:17:14.435 --> 00:17:17.255
Um, what we're really concerned about is space as process.

402
00:17:17.475 --> 00:17:22.015
We wanna understand how, space is constantly unfolding,

403
00:17:22.015 --> 00:17:23.615
how space is constantly being reproduced

404
00:17:24.155 --> 00:17:27.375
or, altered in various ways by these different local

405
00:17:27.675 --> 00:17:29.455
and more wide ranging processes.

406
00:17:29.515 --> 00:17:32.295
And the only way, as Kate said to do that is to bring

407
00:17:32.295 --> 00:17:33.695
as many people on board as possible

408
00:17:33.695 --> 00:17:34.455
to get these perspectives.

Collaboration and Digital Innovation in Historical Research

00:00:00 - Started in a, a random encounter between Kate and me at a conference. we both were separately, this must have been about 2016. We both were, on our own interested in trying to apply, the findings of spatial theory and critical human geography to the study of the Japanese Empire in East Asian history, in the modern area era in particular. and Kate gave a paper about Manchuria at a conference, and I asked a question, then afterwards went up and started talking to her, and then we realized that we had the shared interest.

00:00:34 - We organized a reading group, in North Carolina, and Kate came over. And then as we were wrapping that up, we asked ourselves, what can we do with this? And we thought that one thing that would be interesting was to create an online reader of primary sources that could be annotated and, and, and so forth. But, as we were working with that, we decided that there were more possibilities once we started thinking digitally about everything. we had a couple of workshops with a number

00:01:04 - and then from further afield and, we were playing around with different tools and ultimately we, we came across scaler, this platform that's an open source platform, and realized the wis scaler and the potential that it had to grow. We could do things like not just put up sources and offer commentary, but actually do, interactive annotations linking pathway creation, a multimedia, presentation of research. So we began to build from there, and eventually we wound up getting a national endowment

Reimagining East Asian Histories through Spatial Perspectives

00:01:36 - that enabled us to not only develop our project further, but also help to build the scaler platform in new ways. So that's really, sort of the genesis of this and mean thinking behind it, was to try and, offer ways of thinking about space in the particular context of modern East Asia. but think about space as what Doreen Massey has called the, simultaneity of stories so far. That is to say, to get away from a single master narrative in which one person is gazing down at a map

00:02:10 - how different actors historically have lived in space, experienced it, perceived it, conceived of it, and then how these different experiences and, and movements in space have affected each other to create these broader frameworks with which we're familiar and some with which we're not familiar as Historians. We're used to telling histories about places. But the fundamental insight of this, of the spatial humanities and the works that David and I were reading together in North Carolina is that

00:02:42 - and place right, really affects your understanding of that space. It affects how you move through it. it affects how people respond to you. And so we needed to kind of go from the ground up to bring a multiplicity of perspectives in, into being so that we could then understand what the spaces of, you know, east Asian history really were. And that was the, the appeal of, say, going to a digital, format rather than say a print where once we write it, it stuck.

Challenging Static Narratives: Understanding Diverse Spatial Experiences

00:03:13 - It's easy to kind of assign a particular, spatial understanding or say, point to a particular infrastructure, say railroads as being the most important kind of spatial framework for a given time or place. But actually we have to also look at everybody else who's moving around in that particular time and place and find out actually what was the dominant in terms of, say, transport. What was the dominant way that they moved around? Or for example, for railroads, some people use them

00:03:44 - but some people use them to work. And some people found that going from point A to point B was actually not very interest, not very easy, depending on who they, what kind of body they were in. and this was true, for example, in the Japanese empire, but it's also true in the history of, the United States with Jim Crow laws and, and slavery, right? So we wanted to have to, to create a way where we were, where our, our fundamental assumption right of this project is that there is no one way of experiencing space in a given time and place.

00:04:17 - how can cre we create a history that is multifocal, right? That, that contains narratives that are grounded in these different, these different experiences. We tend to think of maps, as completed artifacts. There, there's something that's been produced and it's there and it offers you a view of a certain kind of reality or a certain kind of, ideological position. But the map itself was constructed. The map itself was made through various processes from sending out somebody into

Unpacking the Complexities of Mapping and Spatial Perception

00:04:49 - to disputes over what kind of symbols to use on a map to disputes over whose map it was and what usage it would be put to. And all of these things were at various points on the map, but then they get elided so that at the end you get this finished product that looks like a map where three quarters of the world is colored in pink because of the British dominated, for example. but all the processes that go into that need to be uncovered. So at one level, there's a challenge to the, the sort of graphical narrative, that one can,

00:05:20 - by putting it into a gridded form. At the same time, it, the notion of mapping itself has to be called into question. So we, we thought a lot with the work of Edward Casey on this, and, and Edward Casey argues that mapping itself is just a process of, of way finding that one is constantly encountering places in space and one has to make their way through. And our fundamental bodily or orientations our front back, left, right, up, down, we're always orienting ourselves even if we're not thinking about it.

00:05:53 - to give people a sense, first of all, of being disoriented and having to find their way through this to consciously engage with these spaces and spatial histories, but also to think about historical actors might have dealt with that so that, for example, a borderer may seem self-evident to us, but for somebody encountering a border for the first time, it's not, and they have to figure out how to, how to approach it, how to, they may have knowledge that helps 'em to do that, but they may not. There are all kinds of, uncertainties in the process. And we wanted as much as possible

Exploring Historical Perspectives on Space and Experience

00:06:22 - to flesh out those uncertainties or, or play with those uncertainties in their work. One of the major takeaways, the kind of major insights that's come from this project is simply the scope of materials that are available for thinking, thinking with space, for thinking, through and analyzing various historical actors' experiences of space in the context of modern East Asia. that is to say that it is something that is fundamental

00:06:56 - And it's also been very important for modern, for modern states, for modern institutions, to try to kind of teach people certain ways of moving through the world and, things that are the right way to be the wrong way to be. Here's what the globe looks like. Here's how we're divided up spatially as as human beings, for example. And, and, you know, David was talking about mapping, and that's one part of it. So one of the big takeaways is that you can pick up almost any historical document

00:07:26 - to pull apart and learn more about how this person, or how this group of people went through the world. And by learning that you get a different understanding of what that decade, right, or that, or that area, actually meant to people. So to, to give you, a more concrete example, our modules, we all, all we asked our contributors to do was, was pick a source,

Exploring Historical Narratives Through Diverse Modules

00:07:57 - And we ended up with modules on, department stores in 1920s, Japan, biological warfare in, Vietnam during the kind of Vietnam, war era, smallpox vaccination campaigns in early modern Japan, women transgressive mobility, women moving back and forth from Japan to China and back again. And all of the discourse that that created, political manifestos about how,

00:08:28 - of the Japanese empire. I mean, the, the archive got humongous right away. and it's just, it was so exciting then to sit together with these other historians and talk about what we were each coming to find in our materials, and then what, how did that change our understanding of East Asia as a place that people lived and, and, you know, understood themselves in. So we have a lot of different things that, that people talked about. But what, I and Kate and a lot of our contributors came away with,

00:09:00 - where a number of us have, have offered our reflections. but what many of us came away with was the incredible utility of juxtaposing these places and these kinds of sources so that somebody who was writing about drugstore networks, you know, retail drugstore networks in the 1910s and twenties in Japan could find something to think about in, say, Republican of Chinese, Mongolian settlement plans.

Intersecting Perspectives: Rationalities and Spatial Understanding

00:09:30 - think about, a Taiwanese activist's view of the world and use that these, some were working on, airlines in Manchuria under the Japanese could inform the thinking of somebody working on, German warfare in Vietnam in the 1950s and vice versa. So it was this, this, relationship among the sources and among the topics and among the categories that we came up with, to, to make sense of it, that

00:10:00 - and we hope will be productive more generally. For example, we came up with various conceptual categories for a tag map that, that could be applied to the various elements of everyone's, projects. And, we thought about the different kinds of rationalities to give one example, the different kinds of rationalities that are apparent or that can be read from, the different sources and processes that people were looking at. And so there are rationalities that are about, the rationality of, of market and commerce, right?

00:10:33 - by political entities. There are rationalities that are biological. How do germs move, for example? There are rational different kinds of rationalities. and, teasing those out through these conversations and then reapplying them to say, yeah, I can see this work through that lens was, was very useful. So that's one example. I think another was just to think about, vision, the ways in which people see space. So we, we tried to get out these abstract categories,

Exploring Spatial Practices and Mapping Politics in Historical Contexts

00:11:02 - that then would have greater utility beyond one or two, modules, one or two sources In the field of history, in your own sort of area context and time and place. You, you get comfortable thinking that, when we're talking about, the kind of politics of mapping, we're talking about, you know, imperial mapping practices that, that go ahead and, and, and territorialized other people's places, you know, and put it inside the nation as if it's not a problematic thing to do, right?

00:11:32 - what we're always talking about must be commodity networks. and what we did with the tag map, when we got everybody together, to fi they, they would figure out, well, how, what unites us? There's so much about time and place and, and language even that might, that might draw barriers amongst our projects, but what brings us together spatially? and then we would find out for example, that, you know, Mar Eer is talking about, the, the spatial practices and the geography of inoculation. The idea of time became really important to her story

00:12:05 - would be good for six or seven days. So they had to organize all the vaccine vaccination campaigns based on how quickly you could get a child who had the, who had the pustule that could be usually inoculation right, to the next place, which then prompted Mitch also to think about what were the rationalities behind his geography when he was talking about all of the knowledge production about biological warfare. And he was like, well, it's not about time so much for me, but really there's, there's an emotional component to this and the different registers that people are using

Exploring New Perspectives in Digital Scholarship

00:12:37 - from the farmers who are reporting these attacks in the fields to then get going all the way through to scientific communities on the other half of the globe, right? So as researchers, what we want people to get out of it is an opportunity to ask questions, right? To be, to be made, to find a common ground that then shines new light on things that you thought of as familiar and fully understood to you, the expert, right? But maybe actually there's other ways you could be thinking about it. Something

00:13:08 - offers potential for research. That is to say, by simply putting up your, your sources and interrogating your sources through these different media rich techniques, adding annotation is drawing linkages. Developing a conceptual framework, you can begin to think about your own project differently. You can begin think about, what you might have excluded in a more traditional text-based monograph or simply text-based monograph and how that might be worked back in because you now have digital space to do it. And what that allows you to do in terms

00:13:39 - drawing connections to the projects, and once you get that across a number of projects that are coexisting in this, on this platform, there are all kinds of juxtapositions that could be, quite fruitful. When we say digital scholarship, it's so vast, there's no way to simply categorize it. What we do, is one, one thing that some people would say is simply content management that scalers the content management platform. somebody who's working with big data analytics would look at digital scholarship in a very different way.

Embracing Non-Linearity in Digital Scholarship

00:14:10 - at it in a very different way. and actually Kate and I have co-edited a special, forum for the Journal of Asian Studies in which we discussed this and have got contributors from various parts of Asian studies coming to talk about projects that, that are ongoing or, that offer interesting examples of what can be done. so I think the digital scholarship itself is quite vast and, and, and we lay no claim to authority over the field in any way, shape, or form. but that said, what we tried to do was combine sort

00:14:43 - of a better word, monographic scholarship with new digital tools that allow people to expand upon their, their, their capacity to develop narratives and arguments. And so, one of the things that, that we started with and have consistently pushed is the idea of non-linearity that, rather than simply go from point A through point C, is if there's a clean line we can take apart the materials that we would've had to pack into a single linear narrative for the most part in a print book

00:15:13 - and show the different threads and how they're moving in different ways, but, people can work through them as they see fit and draw their own sort of lessons from that. There are bigger arguments that each of our authors wants to make, but nonetheless, we offer space for the, the reader or the user to engage with this on their own terms and construct their own possible ways through the material. So I think that that's an important part of the process. It's what the digital offers in some ways that the print version has not in the past.

Collaborative Histories and the Process of Mapping

00:15:44 - that I, David and I both want to keep, and if all historical scholarship went forward like this, it would be great. That's the collaborative element of it. We went into this. If you assume that space is a simultaneity of stories so far, you cannot possibly figure it all out on your own historians work. I mean, we, we, we, it is a conversation, this thing called professional history. The product ends up looking like the work of a single person. And so what we did from the get go is say,

00:16:17 - and then 17 brains together. We're not aiming for here is what space is. We're actually aiming for the conversation. And that's what we put front and center with the Bodies and Structures Project First 10 Brains and then 17 Brains and now, and then all with the Lenses tool, really inviting users to engage with what we've put out there and make their own maps going forward. And it's through that ever evolving conversation that we get

00:16:50 - has experienced History Hearing Kate talk about how, the traditional way is to, to sort of mask all the process and just show the finished product by one author reminds me of, you know, it resonates with what I said earlier about the map, that the map is a process, but that ultimately it becomes this kind of formal finished artifact and that people only look at that without interrogating what went on to produce it.

Exploring the Dynamic Nature of Space Through Collaborative Perspectives

00:17:33 - We wanna understand how, space is constantly unfolding, how space is constantly being reproduced or, altered in various ways by these different local and more wide ranging processes. And the only way, as Kate said to do that is to bring as many people on board as possible to get these perspectives.

Faculti AI can make mistakes

Research

Policy

Analysis

Data

Originals

Explainers

Podcasts

Faculti

New on Faculti

Idea Explorer

Definition

News Context

Critical Questions and Answers

Research Summaries

Bodies and Structures

Media Literacy Toolkit

Critical Questions to Consider ▼

Bias and Perspective Awareness ▼

Further Reading ▼