The Feminist Data Manifest-NO

In the class on October 23rd, Ilaria Tonelli explained how data (and metadata) is never objective in itself, as it always requires interpretation; as an example of scholarly work that has acknowledged this fact, Ilaria mentioned The Feminist Data Manifest-NO, whose name sparked my interest. I then read the full text and I am writing this post answering the scholars’ invitation “to take up one or more of the principles of the Feminist Data Manifest-NO” and to reflect on them (The Feminist Data Manifest-NO: An Introduction and Four Reflections).

The Manifest-NO is a text drafted collectively by a group of scholars in August 2019 (1), in the context of a Feminist Data Studies Workshop hosted by the IRWG at the University of Michigan. It is a “set of refusals and commitments for feminist data studies” created to  “remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the worlds you cannot live within” (Ruha Benjamin, ibidem). The Manifest-NO contains 32 statements, each entailing a refusal part, which explains what the scholars are not willing to embrace when working with data, and a commitment part where they express what they are working towards.

The statements cover many different topics, and I chose to write about the Manifest-NO because I found some of connections to the texts we have read during the course and to some of the discussions that have stemmed from them — in fact we have also read a whole text about data feminism. The first echo I found is that of universal design: point 7 is concerned with intelligibility and tangibility of data by “the people whose lives are implicated in them” and not only by experts, point 18 is an explicit commitment to make data and works accessible to as many people as possible even if the costs are high, and point 26 asserts the importance of data that is accountable and legible even when it’s not machine readable and useful to the market. This last point also goes back to the discussion we had on the deep and complicated relationship between DH and the market, which started already with Father Busa’s collaboration with the IBM.

The second topic that I think is relevant to our discussion is that of “the human” behind data and in the DH field. It is addressed in point 4 and 29 —  which express a commitment to always see data in its human, embodied and particular context and using methodologies that “transcend traditional boundaries between qualitative and quantitative” – and in the last point, which intends to recognize “personhood as a feminist data value”.

The last theme of the Manifest-NO that I would like to underline is related to a discussion which we had during the very same class where the text was presented, and it is evident in point 8: “We refuse work about minoritized people. We commit to mobilizing data so that we are working with and for minoritized people in ways that are consensual and reciprocal and that understand data as always co-constituted” (the italics was added by me). 

In class, a colleague was reflecting on whether it is acceptable to carry out projects on minoritized communities if one is not a member of them, even when one is involving them in the project. I personally think that it depends on the community, as there can be some communities that would rather not have external people taking over the narrative on their behalf once again, while other communities might be glad to have their issues raised and brought to attention also by other people. In fact, as a member of a specific “chronic illness community" which is strongly under searched and not visible enough, I would say that for me at the moment any contribution —  in DH as in any other field — which might help making our struggle known to the general public, and therefore hopefully also to those involved in medical research and funding, is very much appreciated. I obviously cannot speak in the behalf of the whole community, but I can say that for me the key words here are “with” and “for” marginalized communities: research about us that does not involve our direct experience and opinions would certainly do more harm than good, but I think that projects done by external people who consult us as well are highly beneficial, and it is actually relieving to know that there are people who are not part of the community who are willing to share with us the burden of making the struggle visible; this is especially relevant in the context of chronic illness, since the conditions already take away a great amount time and energy from the people who live with it, so relying just on our forces for activism (as is mostly the case now) would negatively impact the results. 

To conclude, I think that if every discipline had a Manifest-NO as well as some scholars ready to embrace it, research would be much different.

1: The scholars who participated in the project are: Marika Cifor, Patricia Garcia, T. L. Cowan, Jas Rault, Tonia Sutherland, Anita Say Chan, Jennifer Rode, Anna Lauren Hoffmann, Niloufar Salehi, and Lisa Nakamura