Senses of Place, Senses of the Past: Making Experiential Maps as Part of Community Heritage Fieldwork

Abstract

This paper explores the mode of production and potential uses of a specific heritage fieldwork and interpretation tool: collaborative experiential maps. Drawing from a case study in Italy, this paper asks to what extent the experiential map created with the sole input from members of the local community can offer a useful research tool in fieldwork and interpretation — specifically, it discusses how open-ended, collaborative experiential mapping can add to the traditional quantitative ‘distribution map’ commonly used by heritage professionals, landscape archaeologists and historians. This hands-on way of map-making offers a cartographic and visual output to better communicate the complex nature of local heritage, as it situates and blends places, folk-tales, material culture and memories in one straight-forward, colourful and approachable medium.