The "Labor Processes" of Spatial Reading, Thick Mapping, Crowdsourcing, and Multimodality
Aimi Hamraie's essay, "Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice" tracks the political ethics and management of collective digital mapping projects that document spatial accessibility by contributors who are disabled or other-abled. Hamraie argues that this work is often depoliticized because critics are unable to read the labor intensive process that contributes to the digital platform. For example, spatial reading--the collecting of data on the accessibility of a space--is often crowdsourced through disabled volunteer data collectors, who conduct in-person research that is then digitized. "Thick mapping" is the accumulation of this data over a spatial representation, and often these crowdsourced maps can contain many layers of data that has been arduously collected.
This documentation, contrary to certain arguments by critics of these maps, is in itself a political act. Digitization of the data does not compromise the revolutionary act of data collection. Hamraie writes:
Crowdsourcing makes possible the inclusion of previously-excluded voices from the documentation of accessibility. Hamraie argues that "marginalized users retain leadership as experts who devise accessibility criteria," becoming leading voices in their own representation and struggle. Of course, crowdsourcing is also open to able-bodied and other-abled people, bringing together many contributions to the thick mapping process. "Collective labor, in turn, contributes to collective liberation through new interdependent modes of allyship and expertise."
Hamraie's argument is countering the claim we have also been discussing all semester: that digital work "just happens" or isn't "real" work. The continuation of this claim when it comes to the contributions of marginalized and excluded people is a violent act of sabotage; thus their contributions are, in themselves, acts of political defiance. Anyone who has worked on a digital project knows the hours that go into its creation. It seems like we are all constantly called by "the norm" to justify our digital voices, to defend our digital labor. The more we defend our own work, then, we must also recognize and defend the labor of the marginalized.
What are some ways that we can connect our work to projects like those described by Hamraie, projects that further the interests and amplify the voices of those previously excluded?
Are there examples of how we might have internalized the "digital work isn't labor" assumption and have been committing passive violence against others?
--Brandon James O'Neil
New York, New York
This documentation, contrary to certain arguments by critics of these maps, is in itself a political act. Digitization of the data does not compromise the revolutionary act of data collection. Hamraie writes:
...a wheelchair user who encounters a broken lift or a chemically injured person who encounters a restroom cleaned with harsh chemicals has to document and advocate for change individually. This disproportionate burden on people whose public belonging is already made vulnerable by the built environment represents a double injustice: the atomizing burden of having to advocate on a case-by-case basis for the removal of barriers, in addition to experiencing discriminating barriers. (469).
Crowdsourcing makes possible the inclusion of previously-excluded voices from the documentation of accessibility. Hamraie argues that "marginalized users retain leadership as experts who devise accessibility criteria," becoming leading voices in their own representation and struggle. Of course, crowdsourcing is also open to able-bodied and other-abled people, bringing together many contributions to the thick mapping process. "Collective labor, in turn, contributes to collective liberation through new interdependent modes of allyship and expertise."
Hamraie's argument is countering the claim we have also been discussing all semester: that digital work "just happens" or isn't "real" work. The continuation of this claim when it comes to the contributions of marginalized and excluded people is a violent act of sabotage; thus their contributions are, in themselves, acts of political defiance. Anyone who has worked on a digital project knows the hours that go into its creation. It seems like we are all constantly called by "the norm" to justify our digital voices, to defend our digital labor. The more we defend our own work, then, we must also recognize and defend the labor of the marginalized.
What are some ways that we can connect our work to projects like those described by Hamraie, projects that further the interests and amplify the voices of those previously excluded?
Are there examples of how we might have internalized the "digital work isn't labor" assumption and have been committing passive violence against others?
--Brandon James O'Neil
New York, New York
Comments
Post a Comment