I recently started training on ArcGIS’s StoryMaps platform. This popular and user-friendly tool is a stark contrast to other ArcGIS tools in its ease of learning and usability. Many of the faculty at my institution have StoryMaps assignments for their classes. Students can make very engaging projects with a dash more work than a traditional essay would require, so  it is appropriate for a final project.

I could have gone the easy route and trained on StoryMaps by using the Vivero’s training module, but I quickly was inspired to go in a different, much more difficult direction. My family is close to a woman who was one of the Aboke Girls, a group of school girls abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in the 1990’s. Their years in captivity over time and space make a powerful story that fits in well with the StoryMaps format.  I did run into some challenges off the bat. First, I had a hard time finding accurate location data for nearly all of the locations critically to the story. I should have realized this earlier, but it should come as no surprise that the survivors were often not told where they were so they wouldn’t try to escape. Even other locations that are more known, like the school, are hard to find accurately on a map from the information I have due to the inaccuracies of Google Earth’s coverage of Northern Uganda. The information that I can find do not focus as heavily on the location aspect as I hoped, so I will need to find other sources.

Next, StoryMaps almost requires images for the narrative to flow, and there were far fewer pictures available than I thought there would be. I have found some promising leads, but I am worried about the copyright issues. I am not sure how images of captive women can legally belong to someone else, but it is a complicated territory.

Lastly, I need to make sure to get the consent of the Aboke Women to have their names, stories, and other details on this project. Their experiences were highly traumatic, and they still face a lot of stigma so many of the women may not want to have their stories highlighted. Other people have told their stories, but I was told that many of the women felt these retellings were unfaithful and disrespectful. I do not want to be another white westerner cooping African women’s trauma for my career, so I want to be sure to include their wishes and demands are met fully and their stories told respectfully. Once I have a more solid draft ready, I will seek some professional advice on how to approach the women and handle this in the most respectful and responsible way possible.

While the project right now focuses on the Aboke Girls captivity, I would like make the project focus more heavily on their lives after escaping the LRA. They aren’t girls anymore, and the Aboke Women have overcome so much to build their current lives, and I want to highlight that. I use the Fiona Apple quote in my conclusion of the StoryMaps: “”How much strength does it take to hurt a little girl? How much strength does it take for the girl to get over it? Which one of them do you think is stronger?”. Apple was famously raped at 12, just like many of the Aboke Women, and her quote fits so well with their story. I want to highlight their strength and what they have done to recover, not what was done to them. I may have to reconfigure the project to achieve that goal. I think some focus on what happened to them is required context to understand their strength, but I am not sure how to responsibly “cut back” on the backstory.

Overall, I easily spent dozens of hours researching, collecting information, and setting up the StoryMaps. This training is now turning into a full-fledged research project!