Mapping the Imagined South: GIS Mapping of Contemporary Southern Cookbooks

Carrie  Helms  TippenChatham  University

ctippen@chatham.edu@chtippen

Questions of this Project

• Rapid  growth  in  cookbooks  marketed  as  “Southern.”(Lily  Kelting,  “The  Entanglement  of  Nostalgia  and  Utopia  in  Contemporary  Southern   Food  Cookbooks”)

• 1990-­‐2000:  2%  of  American  cookbooks  have  “South”  in  the  title• 2000—2010:  3%• 2010-­‐2015:  7.5%

• Where  is  the  South?• What  do  writers  mean  when  they  say  “Southern”?• Who  do  writers  mean  when  they  say  “Southerners”?• What  supports  writers’  claims  of  authenticity?

Digital Humanities Summer Institute

• University  of  Victoria,  Summer  2015• ArcMAP,  QGIS• How  to  build  an  effective  database  for  collecting  and  coding  place  names  and  coordinates.• Density  Mapping

The State of the Project

• 8 complete  data  sets.• 4  in  progress.• 3 more  by  September  1.  • Targeted  for  online  journal  Southern  Spaces  series  “Digital  Spaces.”

Data Collecting

• Coordinates  from  Google  Maps• Qualitative  Description• Page,  Chapter,  Author

• Multiple  Descriptions• Groups

Limitations

• ArcMAP only  available  for  PC,  in  one  computer  lab  on  my  campus.  • ArcMAP only  makes  ”still”  images,  not  interactive.  • ArcMAP is  hard.  

Mapping withTableau

Sean  Brock,  Heritage.  2014.

Hugh  Acheson,  A  New  Turn  in  the  South.  2011.

Counting withTableau

Sean  Brock,  Heritage.  2014.

Hugh  Acheson,  A  New  Turn  in  the  South.  2011.

Comparing with Tableau

Hugh  Acheson,  A  New  Turn  in  the  South.  2011.

Sean  Brock,  Heritage.  2014.

Sharing with Tableau?

• The  ability  to  share  online  and  allow  viewers  to  query  data  IF  they  have  permission  as  a  Tableau  user.  • A  better  way  to  publish  interactively?• A  faster  way  to  collect  data?

Email:  ctippen@chatham.eduTwitter:  @chtippen