The new model developed through the ReliefMaps+ platform expands the possibilities to explore the experiences from an intersectional, spatial, and emotional perspective. 


ReliefMaps+ is a tool for the study of intersecting inequalities, which integrates three constitutive dimensions of the lived experience to capture and visualise the dynamic interplay among them, in a systematic form and in a single image: 

 

  • The social - structural intersectionality: ReliefMaps+ analyses how the effects of social structures vary across intersecting social positions 
  • The geographic - places: understood as constitutive of intersectional dynamics, shaping how inequalities are lived across everyday contexts. 
  • The psychological - emotions: emotions are treated as embodied effects of structural power and as indicators of broader social processes. 

It has the potential to systematize complex information about the lived experience of perceived discrimination, and allows a deep reflection that promotes social transformation in the process of a study (Rodó-de-Zárate, 2014).


An example of a Relief Map of a participant in a study can be seen in the following image, which visually displays, in a geographically based picture, the reliefs of comfort and discomfort due to various positions in places of everyday life.  
 

Image 1: Relief Map – Perception of the dis/comfort of a black young heterosexual woman in public spaces, leisure places, health centres, government spaces, virtual spaces, her workplace, public transport, educational centres, natural spaces, activist spaces, and at home, according to her different positions of gender, sexual orientation, age, race/ethnicity, religion, language. (dis)ability, beauty standards and economic situation.