La práctica del feminismo de datos: Conversaciones con Catherine DʼIgnazio, Lauren Klein y Maya Livio (original) (raw)
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Big Data & Society, 2023
Data has become a key format for activists to visibilizar (make visible/call attention to) and denounce social issues. Drawing on the concept of "artivism," we name as data artivism those works that visually intervene in the contestation around an issue by mobilizing art and craft as a form of resistance and as a method to visualize data. In this commentary, we share three examples of data artivism on the issue of feminicide. Our aim is to inspire the fields of critical data and data visualization studies to engage more deeply with art and find common language with artists, activists and advocacy groups (particularly those in Latin America), who are going beyond conventional visualization to reveal a range of alternative ways to mobilize data.
A feminist perspective on data science: The Feminist Search Tool
2021
Proofreading by Simon Browne This essay is a reflection on the development of a feminist search tool and my involvement in its technical and conceptual aspects. It refers to the notion of feminist critical computing in public infrastructures and specifically digital libraries. It brings to light the frictions between the technical aspects of a digital infrastructure and the societal issues it comes to address. This essay studies one 1 of the prototypes of the Feminist Search Tool (FST), a collective artistic project that explores ways of engaging with items of digital library catalogues and systems of categorization 2. The specific FST I worked on is a digital visualization tool that engages with the collection of the International Homo/Lesbian Information center and Archive (IHLIA) using terms from their Homosaurus, a standalone international LGBTQ linked data vocabulary that is used to describe their collection 3. This essay highlights the tensions between technical restrictions and research questions within the working group of the FST. One such question initiated the FST group's collective research: "Why are the authors of the books I read so white, so male, so Eurocentric?", implying an absence of diversity due to missing data in libraries. A search tool is a way to bring awareness to these gaps and inclusion and exclusion mechanisms in Western knowledge collection and distribution systems. The project challenges categorization protocols in libraries and the question of who holds the power and responsibility for determining the search and retrieval process: the readers, the users or the librarians? The algorithms, or the libraries? And in the end, "what do we change, delete and keep, the users or the researchers and the library or the algorithm? Can we become aware of the search engine's short comings and make them experiential?" (Read-in, 2017). Institutional cataloguing systems have a desire to unify and universalise the collection, which often omits authors from different backgrounds, passes biases and ignores non-Western systems of knowledge. It is often impossible to intervene in the categories from the position of an outsider to the institution. A feminist perspective on data science is critical regarding the missing datasets in such systems. Who is collecting, and what, are both questions that feminist researchers are asking. The field descriptors in the dataset of the books of IHLIA's collection came from the Dutch Homosaurus. This field, that was filled in with the objective choice of the librarians, would mostly refer to the content of the books. The interface of the FST, with five categories to search within ('Race',
RES 51. Technology and Feminism: A Strange Couple * Tecnología y feminismo: una extraña pareja
The "gender digital divide" constitutes a prolific research program that compares the differences between women and men in access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Nevertheless, those using feminist socio-constructivist perspectives argue for the need to pay attention, not only to " access, " but also to " design, " in addition to considering social relations as something that is coded within technological artifacts. From this perspective, gender constitutes an integral part of technological production. This paper explores the co-constitution of gender and technology, considering a specific action– research experience. It is argued that the re-signification of gendered and technological codes drifts through: a) the opening of gendered and technological codes; b) the production of new cultural imaginaries that question hegemonic representations of gender; and c) the production of new subjectivities through the reorganization of socio-technical practices to develop performative acts that transform patriarchal relations. La “brecha digital de género” constituye un prolífico programa de investigación que compara las diferencias entre mujeres y hombres en el acceso a las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación. Las perspectivas socio-constructivistas feministas, sin embargo, abogan por la necesidad de prestar atención no sólo al “acceso”, sino también al “diseño”, y consideran las relaciones sociales como elementos codificados en el interior los artefactos tecnológicos. Desde esta perspectiva, el género constituye una parte integral de la producción tecnológica. Este trabajo explora la constitución conjunta de género y tecnología a partir de una experiencia de investigación-acción específica. Se argumenta que la resignificación de los códigos de género y tecnológicos se desplaza a través de: a) la apertura de los códigos de género y tecnológicos; b) la producción de nuevos imaginarios culturales que cuestionan las representaciones hegemónicas de género; y c) la producción de nuevas subjetividades a través de la reorganización de las prácticas socio-técnicas para el desarrollo de actos performativos que transforman las relaciones patriarcales.
Book Review: Data Feminism by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein
LSE Review of Books, 2020
In Data Feminism, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein use an intersectional feminist lens to examine unequal power structures in the realm of data, and highlight attempts made to rectify them. Showing how the data we collect is representative of our unequal society, this book is a call to action that will particularly benefit feminists seeking to learn how activism can contribute to creating a more equitable form of data science, writes Prachi Shukla.
Data Feminism, by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein
Catherine Rottenberg is associate professor in American and Canadian studies at the University of Nottingham (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-universityrankings/university-nottingham) and the author of The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/rise-neoliberal-feminism-catherinerottenberg-oxford-university-press) (2018).
2016
—In this paper, we begin to outline how feminist theory may be productively applied to information visualization research and practice. Other technology-and design-oriented fields such as Science and Technology Studies, Human-Computer Interaction, Digital Humanities, and Geography/GIS have begun to incorporate feminist principles into their research. Feminism is not (just) about women, but rather draws our attention to questions of epistemology – who is included in dominant ways of producing and communicating knowledge and whose perspectives are marginalized. We describe potential applications of feminist theory to influence the information design process as well as to shape the outputs from that process.
Technology and feminism: A strange couple
Revista de Estudios Sociales No.35, 2015
The "gender digital divide" constitutes a prolific research program that compares the differences between women and men in access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Nevertheless, those using feminist socio-constructivist perspectives argue for the need to pay attention, not only to "access," but also to "design," in addition to considering social relations as something that is coded within technological artifacts. From this perspective, gender constitutes an integral part of technological production. This paper explores the co-constitution of gender and technology, considering a specific actionresearch experience. It is argued that the re-signification of gendered and technological codes drifts through: a) the opening of gendered and technological codes; b) the production of new cultural imaginaries that question hegemonic representations of gender; and c) the production of new subjectivities through the reorganization of socio-technical practices to develop performative acts that transform patriarchal relations.
Data visualization from a feminist perspective - Interview with Catherine D´Ignazio
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 2017
Catherine D’Ignazio is a scholar, artist/designer and software developer who focuses on data literacy, feminist technology and civic art. She has run breastpump hackathons, created award-winning water quality sculptures that talk and tweet, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. Her research at the intersection of gender, technology and the humanities has been published in the Journal of Peer Production, the Journal of Community Informatics, and the proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM SIGCHI). D’Ignazio is an Assistant Professor of Civic Media and Data Visualization at Emerson College, a faculty director of the Engagement Lab and a research affiliate at the MIT Center for Civic Media.