Yamuna

Deep Mapping the Upper Reaches of the Yamuna River

This project is a digital humanities-based study of cultural activities and socio-economic relationships near the headwaters of the Yamuna River and along the river's path through the Himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand, India.

Deep mapping is an interdisciplinary, place-based, digital humanities research method. Bodenhamer et al., in Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives (2015, p. 3), explain deep mapping as:

“A finely detailed, multimedia depiction of a place and the people, animals, and objects that exist within it and are thus inseparable from the contours and rhythms of everyday life.”

Deep mapping in this case involved a visual case study, autoethnography, geospatial data, and media (images, video, sound) to seek meaning and connection we can use to comprehend enigmas and frame human relationships with nature and the spiritual. A deep map, while using cartographic maps in some cases, is not just a thin map, or cartographic map. Rather, it is a body of work grounded in alternative methods of capturing and presenting primary and secondary-source data designed to create information to present a wholistic representation of place.

A variety of products resulted from this project. Each is accessible by using the dropdown menu at the top of this page.

Bodenhamer, D. J., Corrigan, J., & Harris, T. M. (2015). Deep maps and spatial narratives. Indiana University Press.

This project was supported with a generous fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.