ABSTRACT
Building on a move in digital history toward making explicit arguments, this chapter extends the concept of the deep map by exploring how they provide a context for spatial narrative. Narrative might be seen as closing off some of the multiple sources and voices inherent in a deep map, but we argue that it instead provides a way to craft meaningful experiences from an amalgamation of sources. We propose an understanding of the relationship between deep maps and narrative in which a user navigates a deep map through a narrative created by the author. Rather than a pathway akin to that offered by story map platforms, which are strictly linear and either narrowly focused on particular points or limit interaction with maps, such a spatial narrative retains the spatial context of the deep map. The chapter provides a concrete demonstration of this possibility, a prototype narrative map created using the Neatline platform to explain the 1935 Harlem riot. This spatial narrative is based on the deep maps created as part of the Digital Harlem and Year of the Riot projects, but it extends them as a way of navigating through the maps to explain the riot as a complex and multifaceted event.
