In our podcast Whose Voices?, we collect conversations with incredible activists, community builders and change-makers, providing a space to discuss how we can re-imagine and re-design the internet together.
This year’s season is focused on decolonizing structured data, with interviews carried out during Wikimania 2023 in Singapore and a pre-convening we held to dive deeper into these systems. Structured data is at the core of how the internet — as we currently know it — works. These are pieces of information organized in such a way that they can be easily read, understood, and processed by machines. Through these systems, massive amounts of data get sorted out, organized, and classified in relation to other pieces of data. As a result, they are informed and structured by and around specific regulations, traditions, and epistemologies.
The conversations of this season build on the Decolonizing the Internet’s Structured Data – Summary Report, as well as a series of conversations on the topic we organized in 2021.The podcast is also a companion to our publication Deep Diving into Decolonizing Structured Data – Summary Report. All episodes were edited with the kind support of Anneka from Neka Comunicación Creativa, and our conversations about structured data are generously funded by the Mellon Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation. Our deepest gratitude to all the podcast guests, Whose Knowledge? members who joined us as hosts, learning circle participants and friends who made this season possible!
Episode 1 – “Nothing about us, without us” Dumisani Ndubane reflects on ways to decolonise structured data
“What are we teaching machines about us humans?”
Our guest, Dumisani Ndubane, an open-knowledge activist from South Africa, asks this important question in the newest episode of Whose Voices?. Maari Maatreyi from Whose Knowledge? sits down with the prolific African wikimedian and community builder to discuss African anti-colonial perspectives on structured data.
Listen to the full episode on WikiCommons, Soundcloud, Spotify and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Episode 2 – Cuestionando cómo los datos estructurados invisibilizan las realidades y narrativas LGBTQIA+, con Vic Sfriso
¿Cuál es la perspectiva epistémica que da forma a las estructuras del conocimiento y a las iniciativas de conocimiento abierto en los proyectos Wikimedia? Como lo expresa Vic Sfriso, responsable del Programa de Cooperación en Wikimedia Argentina, las formas de conocer y hacer vinculadas al Norte Global son predominantes en el wikiverso.
Escucha el episodio completo en WikiCommons, Soundcloud, y donde encuentres tus podcasts favoritos.
Episode 3 – Making structured data more accessible with Kira Wisniewski
“Are there people that we can talk to within the movement that can create tools and automation? And how are those even informed in the first place?”
What are the happy speculations that come up when we approach structured data as we know it in critical ways? What are the questions bubbling up to the surface for us as feminists and collectives? In this episode, our #VisibleWikiWomen coordinator Sunshine Fionah Komusana sits down with Kira Wisniewski, Executive Director of Art+Feminism.
Listen to the full episode on WikiCommons, Soundcloud and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Episode 4 – Alice Kibombo explores how librarians can use structured data
“The thing with structured data is pervasive, you’re dealing with it even when you don’t know that you are dealing with it.”
Librarians are no strangers to the wonders of structured data, even when they do not call it as such. With numerous catalogs, files, and archives to sort out and information to make accessible and findable, it is part of their day-to-day. Or, as Alice Kibombo, a librarian at the Goethe-Zentrum Kampala, in Uganda, describes its relevance: “On a scale from 1 to 10, eleven.”
Listen to the full episode on WikiCommons, Soundcloud and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Episode 5 – Unpacking Wikidata’s possibilities with Lydia Pintscher
“In some areas Wikidata is very good […] and in other areas, we have a lot more work to do.”
Have you ever wondered who is in charge of the Wikipedia infoboxes that pop up when searching about a public figure, place or a random question you have? In this episode, Whose Knowledge? speaks to one of the people who build the knowledge graphs that inform these info boxes [and many other applications!], through Wikidata. Lydia Pintscher is the portfolio lead manager for Wikidata and has been at the forefront of democratizing access to this open-source data repository.
Listen to the full episode on WikiCommons, Soundcloud and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
