VizChitra 2025

Our proposal depicts the design of a humanistically-informed data visualization of a dataset related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The visualization employs a quantitative dataset of slaving voyages that took place between 1565 and 1858 and uses historical scholarship and humanistic theory in order to call attention to the people behind the data, as well as to what the data does not or cannot represent. In the paper, we summarize the intersecting histories of slavery and data and then outline the theories that inform our design: of the archive of slavery, of the dangers of restaging historical violence, and of visibility, opacity, representation, and resistance. We then describe our design approach and discuss the visualization’s ability to honor the lives of the enslaved by calling attention to their acts of resistance, both recorded and unrecorded.

#Strategic Takeaways for Visualizing:

1. Ask for and by whom any visualization has been designed:
   Ask who will benefit from your visualization and who might be harmed

2. Probe any missing data and the reasons why:
   Consider the context of the data—including any people behind it

3. Hold space for the possibility of not visualizing at all:
   Remember that there is always more than data alone can convey

#Audience:
designers, humanities practioners, nerds on the internet!

#Bio:
Lauren Klein is Winship Distinguished Research Professor and Associate Professor in the departments of Quantitative Theory & Methods and English at Emory University. She directs the Emory Digital Humanities Lab and the Atlanta Interdisciplinary AI Network. Klein’s research brings together computational and critical methods in order to explore questions of gender, race, and justice. She is author (with Catherine D’Ignazio) of the award-winning Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020), and editor (with Matthew K. Gold) of Debates in the Digital Humanities (Univ. of Minnesota Press), among other publications. She is currently completing Data by Design: A History in Five Charts, forthcoming from the MIT Press in 2025.

Tanvi is a design technologist operating at the intersection of data, design, and the humanities. She is currently a Design Researcher at Emory University, contributing to Data by Design: A History in Five Charts, set to be published by MIT Press in 2025. Previously, she has worked as a Design Technologist at Pentagram, Public Policy Lab and Spotify. Tanvi lives in Brooklyn with her two cats, Yuchi and Bubbles.