Event Description
My research is multidisciplinary, across geography, archaeology, history, archival science, and the digital humanities. My collaborative PhD (PRONI & Newcastle University) aims to weave strands of these disciplines to revisit the original idea of William Least Heat-Moon in his seminal work, PrairyErth (a deep map) (1991) – to go deep - to the marrow. The outcome will be a deep map of the Clandeboye Estate, and the source materials will include archival, object-based, map-based, and oral histories.
I perceive a deep map as the lens through which a slow travel writer sees the world, as they absorb history and landscape by travelling both vertically through time and horizontally through the space in which they roam. My research takes the narrative one step further and delivers it using GPS, geofencing techniques, and a smart phone app that will use voice, pictures, and text to merge history into its physical location. This is not a guided tour, but a series of digital ‘finds’, with all the excitement of coming across an ancient artefact and creating a narrative around it – the essence of experiential learning.