Daylighting Past Realities: Making Historical Social Injustice Visible Again Using HGIS-Based Virtual and Mixed Reality Experiences

Twenty-first century technological advancements have the potential to support intersections between social science and geographic information systems (GIS) as well as GIS and emerging geovisual interface technologies. These converging methodologies are enabling researchers to capture and connect audiences in “narratives”, “experiences” or “emotions” of past events and places. The use of interactivity, and online and mobile methods of visualization in cartographic design, is changing the way critical historical events can be represented. Spatial interface and extended reality (XR) technologies have the potential to deliver immersive experiences that enrich empathic engagement and historical narratives in GIScience. This paper explores emerging technologies that deliver visual and sensory information experiences enabling us to explore past injustices in everyday space, thus suggesting new frontiers for historical geographical information systems (HGIS). A set of working prototype applications were developed to investigate the ability of these technologies to mobilize HGIS and social narrative research, and enable interaction between humans and geographic reality in ways not found elsewhere in everyday landscapes. In short, our approach makes invisible, forgotten social injustices, visible once more. These applications include an online story map, an immersive virtual environment and a tangible augmented reality application, each focused through the lens of the narrative of Japanese Canadians during the mid-twentieth century. The paper reflects on the potential of GIS, interface and interaction design methodologies for delivering spatial and emotional immersion, and their implications for communicating historical geography and social injustice narratives.