Methodology

Spatial Narratives Integration Protocol (SNIP)
A pilot methodology for attributable and polyphonic spatial interpretation

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Digital heritage documentation has become increasingly capable of recording physical form through photogrammetry, 3D scanning and spatial modelling. The interpretive problem is different: how can accounts held by people connected to a place remain attributable, spatially situated and open to disagreement when they enter a digital representation?

SNIP was developed during the 2025 UNESCO WHIPIC Fellowship as one experimental response to this question. It does not claim to provide a universal procedure for polyphonic heritage interpretation. The pilot tested how multiple participant accounts could be connected to documented spaces without merging them into a single narrative and while retaining routes back to their sources.

WORKING PRINCIPLES

Attribution rather than anonymous aggregation
Accounts remain connected to identifiable sources where participants have agreed to that form of attribution, rather than being absorbed into an undifferentiated 'community voice'.

Plurality without forced resolution
Different or conflicting accounts are not automatically reconciled. Their differences can remain visible.

Spatial association
Narratives are connected to the locations, objects and spatial relationships through which contributors describe them.

Provenance
Participant accounts, documentary information and researcher interpretation should remain distinguishable so that users can understand where a claim comes from.

Review and correction
The pilot created opportunities for contributors to review and correct material attributed to them.

Reflexivity about research authority
The pilot remained researcher-designed. Participants could review what was attributed to them, but they did not define the full research sequence or methodological framework. This is an unresolved issue rather than a feature to conceal.

FROM INTERPRETIVE NEED TO PILOT RESPONSE

Multiple accounts
The interface retains participant narratives as distinct, attributable entries rather than synthesising them into a single voice.

Multiple forms of evidence
Community accounts and documentary sources can be examined alongside one another without assuming that either automatically resolves the other.

Spatial interpretation
Narratives are anchored to locations within the documented environment so that relationships between memory, use and built form can be explored spatially.

Traceability
The interface is designed to keep the origin of an account visible rather than presenting interpretation as source-neutral.

Revision
The methodology treats interpretation as revisable rather than final.

WHAT THE PILOT DID NOT RESOLVE

SNIP improved the traceability and spatial organisation of multiple accounts, but it did not redistribute authority over the entire research process. The questions, sequence of inquiry, technical structure and final interface remained substantially researcher-defined.

This distinction matters. Better representation within a digital environment is not equivalent to community authority over how research is conceived, governed or subsequently used. The pilot therefore generated a further research problem concerning the relationships, permissions and institutional conditions through which situated knowledge becomes consequential.

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