‘Getting Deep into Things’: Deep Mapping in a ‘Vacant’ Landscape

Abstract

Areas in cities typically denoted as ‘Vacant and Derelict Land’ are frequently presented in policy documents as absent of meaning and awaiting development. However, visits to many of these sites offer evidence of abundant citizen activity occurring outside of planning policy. Dog walkers, DIY skatepark builders, pigeon fanciers and reminiscing former factory workers, for example, can all be found inscribing their own narratives, in palimpsest like fashion, upon these landscapes. This spatio-temporally bound and layered mix of contested meanings extend beyond representational capacity offered by traditional cartographic methods as employed in policy decision-making. Such a failure to represent these ecologies of citizen-led practices often results in their erasure at the point of formal redevelopment. In this chapter, we explore how one alternative approach may respond to these challenges of representation through a case study project in Glasgow, Scotland. Deep mapping is an ethnographically informed, arts research practice, drawing Cifford Geertz’s notion of ‘thick description’ into a visual-performative realm and seeking to extend beyond the thin map by creating multifaceted and open-ended descriptions of place. As such, deep maps are not only investigations into place but of equal concern are the processes by which representations of place are generated. Implicit in this are questions about the role of the researcher as initiator, gatherer, archivist or artist and the intertwining between the place and the self. As a methodological approach that embraces multiplicity and favours the ‘politicized, passionate, and partisan’ over the totalizing objectivity of traditional maps, deep mapping offers a potential to give voice to marginalized, micro-narratives existing in tension with one another and within dominant meta-narratives but also triggers new questions over inclusivity. This methodologically focused chapter explores the ways in which an ethnographically informed, arts research practice may offer alternative insight into spaces of non-aligned narratives. The results from this investigation will offer new framings of spaces within the urban landscape conventionally represented as vacant or empty and generate perspectives on how art research methods may provide valuable investigative tools for decision-makers working in such contexts. The deep mapping work is available to view at http://www.govandeepmap.com.