Tangibles, intangibles and other tensions in the Culture and Communities Mapping Project

This paper describes the Culture and Communities Mapping Project, a study that uses cultural mapping to understand the relationships between the Edinburgh’s cultural spaces and local communities. The paper begins by detailing different methodological paths that those carrying out cultural mapping projects will navigate: formatting the project to collect quantitative or qualitative data, which is usually correlated with tangible or intangible data, as well as approaching the map as a means to policy outcomes or as part of a process of community building through collective memory, or both. The paper then offers an in-depth case study of the Edinburgh-based map, a tool that artists, art institutions, and policy makers can use to better understand Edinburgh’s cultural geography and guide further research on arts equity and access. The findings section concludes with thoughts on what the project reflects about the cultural mapping enterprise more broadly.