Crowd Sourced City: Data Activism Edition, Fall 2023

Website: iwrising.org, IG: @indigenouswomenrising, Twitter: @IWRising

Indigenous people have been uniquely affected by the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. States with some of the largest Indigenous populations being situated in states with the strictest abortion bans, e.g. North and South Dakota, Oklahoma (where the Cherokee Nation is located). IWR is an abortion fund that focuses on indigenous persons who are seeking abortions or birth care, and that provides them with direct financial support to access these services. They are “committed to honoring Native & Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources and advocacy.”

Students helped IWR develop a) an internal dashboard on Tableau for visualizing summary statistics of the populations they are serving and b) a public-facing ArcGIS Storymap that shows the geographic distribution of services provided by IWR over time, embedded within the context of a rapidly changing landscape of access to reproductive health.

Website: theworkscdc.org , IG: @theworksinc_memphis

In Memphis Tennessee, there are few protections for tenants and many tenants do not have representation which contributes to a tenuous landscape with an eviction rate that has increased in recent years. The Works was founded in 1998 to serve housing and community development needs of South Memphis by providing social services, advocacy, and support for families’ holistic, healthful, and socioeconomic success. 

Students develop maps and data visualizations to a) identify eviction hotspots and code violation hot spots, b) identify serial evictors in Memphis and c) elevate community stories about eviction.

Website: www.boston.gov/departments/new-urban-mechanics , IG: @newurbanmechanics, Twitter: @newurbanmechs

In 2021, the City of Boston passed the ORDINANCE ON SURVEILLANCE OVERSIGHT AND

INFORMATION in response to public calls for transparency about the impact of surveillance

technology on citizens. A byproduct of this ordinance was to develop channels for dialogue around surveillance technology in Boston. MONUM, created in 2010 to experiment with, and evaluate new approaches to government and civic life, was tasked with leading these engagement efforts. 

Students worked with MONUM to develop a) data visualizations of how surveillance impacts different demographic groups in Boston, b) an audit to collect new data on the location of surveillance technologies, and c) a framework for equitably engaging with local communities to solicit feedback on the use of surveillance technology in Boston.

Website: www.wakingwomenhealingint.org , IG: wakingwomenhealingint, Twitter: @WomenWaking

For decades, there has been an ongoing crisis of indigenous women and people being taken or murdered at an unrelenting rate, often referred to as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and/or People (MMIW/MMIP). WWHI is a grassroots, Indigenous-led organization based on Menominee lands in what we colonially refer to as Wisconsin. WWHI works to address the misrepresentation and disavowal of violence on indigenous bodies and land through a range of cultural practices and data activism.

Students worked with WWHI to develop a) an airtable database for documenting and summarizing cases of MMWI/P and b) a timeline data visualization for use by families to organize stories and key events related to cases of MMWI/P.

Below is a screen grab of an example, anonymized, timeline data visualization.