In “
Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display” Johanna Drucker stresses the importance of remembering that the “humanities are committed to the concept of knowledge as interpretation, and, second, that the apprehension of the phenomena of the physical, social, cultural world is through constructed and constitutive acts, not mechanistic or naturalistic realist representations of pre-existing or self-evident information.” This is especially important to remember when using digital visualization tools in digital humanities endeavors. Many data visualizations seem to argue for an exclusive and narrow way of viewing the world based on assumptions of knowledge thought to be shared by the same groups of people viewing the visualization. In turn, these assumptions usually dilute the complexities of the external and ‘real’ world, in order to attempt to answer large questions with easily digestible graphics. This kind of visualization not only removes layers of complexity from the capta presented, but also assumes a role of neutral knowledge that is deceitful. When in this form, many types of differing knowledges can become hidden and the presented narrative can become static—in direct violation to the type of discourses humanities disciplines seek to encourage.
While not deliberate, an example can be seen in Katie Leach-Kemon’s article “Visualizing the surprisingly massive toll of suicide worldwide.” A data visualization titled “Top 20 causes of premature death in females, 2010” lists self-harm as number three in both 1990 and 2010, with the mean rank increasing in 2010. What is not immediately apparent is how exactly a female is defined as a female. In this example, it seems a female can only be between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine to be considered, which raises the question—are females below or above this age range considered female? What characterizes a female—the ability to procreate? Or is this data merely restricting the age set in order to get a smaller result? Why would this be the case if one wanted to know how many females committed an act of “self-harm”? How is female defined different than male in this data sample? As seen in Drucker’s paper, “the assumption that gender is a binary category, stable across all cultural and national communities, is an assertion, an argument. Gendered identity defined in binary terms is not a self-evident fact, no matter how often Olympic committees come up against the need for a single rigid genital criterion on which to determine difference.” What is also unclear is what exactly is defined as “self-harm”. Labeled under “injuries”, “self-harm” is included with “road injury,” “fire,” “interpersonal violence,” “drowning,” and “forces of nature.” If a female between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine set herself on fire and died, would this be included under self-harm or fire? As Drucker stated, “the more profound challenge we face is to accept the ambiguity of knowledge.” We must constantly repeat her “refrain–that all data is capta.”
Drucker, Johanna. “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 5, no. 1 (2011)
Leach-Kemon, Katie. “Visualizing the Surprisingly Massive Toll of Suicide Worldwide.” Humanosphere. 18 Aug. 2014. Web.