GIS cartography in modern ethnography

Abstract

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The first ethnic or ethnographic maps date back to the 17th century. The distribution of ethnic groups was already depicted on maps by the ancient Greeks, and during the Age of Discovery, mapping the distribution and settlement of peoples was a crucial new information. Beginning in the mid-19th century, elements of traditional culture began to disappear in developed industrial countries, necessitating the preservation of information about ethnic groups. Thanks to population censuses, ethnographic mapping began to develop as an independent discipline, but it still served an illustrative function: maps, using areas (highlighted by color, shading, or captions) and symbols (usually dots), primarily displayed information about the distribution of peoples. Since the mid-20th century, with the development of cartographic research, mapping has become a specialized method in ethnography. Using techniques from mathematical statistics, information theory, analytical cartographic methods, and so on, it has become possible to identify changes in various objects and phenomena in space and time, as well as the relationships between the geographic characteristics of a territory and patterns of population distribution. In the 1990s, with the rapid development of geoinformation technologies, the processes of storing, processing, and analyzing data were significantly simplified. Geographic information systems (hereinafter referred to as GIS) became the primary tool for creating and analyzing maps. However, while geoinformatics methods have long been a necessary and effective tool in modern archaeology, GIS remains poorly implemented in ethnographic research (Sidorina, Siuziumov, Rakova, Andreeva, Artemeva, 2024). In Russia, ethnographic mapping is being conducted by scientists from the Russian Museum of Ethnography (REM) and the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MAE RAS) 4 (Golovnev, Kukanov, Perevalova, 2018; Fishman et al., 2017). In collaboration with faculty and students from the Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics at Saint Petersburg State University, geoinformation mapping methods have been effectively applied in ethnographic research in the Leningrad Oblast and in work with indigenous minorities of the Russian Federation and the Northern peoples (Appendix, Fig. 1). The traditions of geoinformation mapping are continued in the study “Indigenoussmall-n umbered Peoples: Virtual Ethnicity and Network Experiences”, 5 the purpose of which is to study the ethnic identity of indigenous peoples in cyberspace using new methods of field ethnography and analytical ethnology, as well as taking into account the current situation. The main objectives of geoinformation mapping in ethnographic research are: • finding automated GIS methods and tools that are best suited for analyzing and displaying information; • identifying relationships between various phenomena characterizing the distribution of certain peoples; • identifying the relationship between ethnographic data and topography, climate, economic and historical events, etc. In addition to the creation of GIS and electronic maps, new techniques are emerging, such as cyberethnography: the study of online communication within and between ethnic communities (Belorussova, Siuziumov, 2024). Geoinformatics and geoinformation mapping are helping to study the impact of the internet on modern ethnic groups, and in turn, actively utilize various online services to solve technological problems in data processing and visualization (Appendix, Fig. 2). One of the popular opensource software packages is the QGIS 6 geographic information system, which can be used to create geographic information projects, maps, and analyze research data. Using this technology, a geoinformation database was developed that makes it possible to track how indigenous peoples of Russia use social networks: what topics are raised on social networks, how broad the reach