[-empyre-] feminist data viz - data equity

[kanarinka]

One aspect of taking a feminist approach to data visualization that I have
been thinking about a great deal has less to do with visualization and more
to do with equity and justice concerns around the distribution of data and
the products that come from it.

Big Data, medium data and even small data are all asymmetric in the sense
that:
- who has the capacity to collect and store the data is not equally
distributed (basically it's large corporations and states)
- access to data is not equally distributed (those collecting agencies are
selective when it comes to what data is "open", it's debatable whether some
of the data called "open" actually is open or not, i.e. PDFs)
- know-how to analyze and make meaning (or "business intelligence") from
data is not equally distributed (see Kate Crawford's recent article
"Artificial Intelligence's White Guy Problem" -
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligences-white-guy-problem.html?_r=0
)
- understanding of impacts is not transparent - actions and decisions that
result from data and often have serious consequences are not transparent.
I.e. if someone is being denied a loan, it's not clear what part of the
algorithm flagged them

In my work this has translated to working on data literacy in order to do
my small part to counteract these imbalances and to get more voices to the
table, particularly journalists, artists, educators, policymakers.

What might taking a feminist approach mean for interrogating, intervening
in this asymmetry? Do people know of artists or cultural producers who have
tried to visualize/expose power flows through Big Data ecosystems?

/////////////////////////////
kanarinka at ikatun.org   ||   @kanarinka   ||   +1 617 501 2441   ||
www.kanarinka.com
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