Cognitive Geographies of Catastrophe Narratives: Georeferenced Interview Transcriptions as Language Resource for Models of Forced Displacement

Annie K. Lamar, Rick Castle, Carissa Chappell, Emmanouela Schoinoplokaki, Allene M. Seet, Amit Shilo, Chloe Nahas


Abstract
We present a machine-understandable geotagged dataset of translated interviews from the Nakba Archive alongside a complete georeferenced dataset of named locations mentioned in the interviews. In a preliminary analysis of this dataset, we find that the cognitive relationship of interviewees to place and spatiality is significantly correlated with gender. Our data also shows that interviewees with birthplaces depopulated in the 1948 Nakba incorporate references to named places in their interviews in substantially different ways than other interviewees. This suggests that the status of the interviewee’s birthplace may impact the way they narrate their experiences. Our work serves as a foundation for continued and expanded statistical and cognitive models of Palestinian forced displacement.
Anthology ID:
2025.nakbanlp-1.3
Volume:
Proceedings of the first International Workshop on Nakba Narratives as Language Resources
Month:
January
Year:
2025
Address:
Abu Dhabi
Editors:
Mustafa Jarrar, Habash Habash, Mo El-Haj
Venues:
NakbaNLP | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
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Pages:
18–29
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.nakbanlp-1.3/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Annie K. Lamar, Rick Castle, Carissa Chappell, Emmanouela Schoinoplokaki, Allene M. Seet, Amit Shilo, and Chloe Nahas. 2025. Cognitive Geographies of Catastrophe Narratives: Georeferenced Interview Transcriptions as Language Resource for Models of Forced Displacement. In Proceedings of the first International Workshop on Nakba Narratives as Language Resources, pages 18–29, Abu Dhabi. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Cognitive Geographies of Catastrophe Narratives: Georeferenced Interview Transcriptions as Language Resource for Models of Forced Displacement (Lamar et al., NakbaNLP 2025)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.nakbanlp-1.3.pdf