Casting a net across oceans: Digitally mapping early scientific voyages in the Indo-Pacific region

This article takes stock of the interdisciplinary Expeditions To The Pacific project which uses the TLCMap interface to create digital maps of scientific voyages within the Indo-Pacific region completed by 1834. While recognising the many ways in which European voyaging accounts have been used in the writing of Pacific history, this article argues that digital maps offer new, place-based ways of viewing, comparing, and interpreting voyage accounts. This article describes the value and process of identifying 'scientific' voyages to create a workable corpus, and the ways in which interaction with the TLCMap interface has shaped the project and its website www.ExpeditionsToThePacific.org. This article records the project's challenges and progress, the ways in which the maps created have already informed a range of projects, and assesses the project's limitations.

History Australia

History Australia

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1833-4881

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