VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
This presentation examines historical GIS (HGIS) as a mode for productive critical inquiry into a particular genre of urban spatial history: demolitions. This analysis draws on four iterations of an undergraduate course framed by the history of demolitions in comparative urban contexts, including São Paulo (Brazil), Chicago (USA), and Austin (USA). The course integrates seminar-based historical and geographic analysis with hands-on HGIS labs. In seminars, students engage case studies that illuminate how the destruction of urban space intersects with broad processes like uneven development, and displacement. In parallel, HGIS labs introduce foundational techniques of historical mapping, ranging from the sourcing and georeferencing of historical raster maps to the creation and visualization of time-based vector datasets. These critical and technical competencies serve as the basis for the development of empirically-grounded historical arguments. Students apply these HGIS methods to original individual and collective research projects, including contributions to the São Paulo-based collaborative historical mapping platform Pauliceia 2.0 (https://pauliceia.unifesp.br/portal/home). In doing so, they contribute to the production and dissemination of knowledge about urban spatial change and continuity over time. In addition to highlighting the promise of HGIS, in this presentation I reflect on typical technical, interpretative, and infrastructural challenges that shape its use in the classroom and beyond. While some of those challenges, like changes in toponymy and street numeration, are typical of HGIS, they manifest differently across distinct urban contexts.
Andrew G. Britt is a historian of Brazil with specializations in digital humanities and emerging technologies, critical geography, and the African diaspora in Latin America. He is the author of ‘I’ll Samba Someplace Else: A Spatial History of Race, Ethnicity, and Displacement in São Paulo’ (Duke University Press, 2026). He leads The RemediesAR, a collaborative augmented reality project based in São Paulo, and is a member of the team behind Pauliceia 2.0, an open-course participatory historical mapping platform.