The avatar for profile information is a key feature developed in the ReliefMaps+ platform that allows the possibility to represent participants through a graphical representation of the intersectional social positions of participants. 

Avatar legend

Traditionally, the collection of profile data from individuals participating in research is taken for granted, and the techniques commonly used focus on survey-type formats. The avatar offers a visual representation of participants’ social positions, based on the answers they provide, and helps them reflect on how these positions intersect in their everyday lives. 


Rather than treating each category in isolation, the avatar makes it possible to understand participants’ locations in a more complex, relational and interdependent way than is usually allowed in conventional questionnaires and surveys.
For that, the project introduces the metaphor of the basket of apples (Rodó-Zárate & Jorba 2020) as a way to gather profile data from an intersectional perspective through the creation of an avatar for each participant who fills up the Relief Maps tool. 


The metaphor of the basket of apples addresses two of the main problems identified in existing metaphors of intersectionality: the lack of differentiation between positions and effects, and the tendency towards reification. 


By understanding social positions as the diverse properties of different apples, categories are treated as attributes rather than as entities in themselves, which helps to avoid reification. At the same time, this perspective makes it possible to approach the dimension of effects in a plural and contextual way. 


This shift reframes the debate in intersectionality theory about how categories relate to one another, and about their (in)separability and possible fragmentation.


Through this avatar, INTERMAPS presents a visual way to inquire and digitally visualize positions in relation to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, social class, age, among other axes, maintaining the principle of mutual constitution between categories. Simultaneously, it allows a process of awareness and reflection on one's own positions of oppression and privilege among the participants.

Example of an avatar