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Revision as of 12:38, 2 February 2018
Abstract (50 words) Synopses (500 words)
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Reading – Tash
The Digital Universal Library and the myth of chaos
by Sanne Koevoets, in Webs of Feminist Knowledge Online
Abstract (50)
In this essay, Sanne Koevoets offers the FRAGEN database as an example of a feminist digital library which, through transparent processes and inclusive interfaces, is questioning and rejecting the biased structures of online knowledge spaces as we know them.
Synopses (500)
This essay is a feminist critique on digital libraries written by Sanne Koevoets (NL); who is a researcher and lecturer on new media cultures and gender studies.
It begins with an excerpt from Jose Luis Borges’ pivotal work ‘The Library of Babel’ (1941, English translation 1962), a short story which figures a vast library that consists of an infinite number of hexagonal spaces, holding an unlimited number of books. But the promise of a ‘Universal Library’, which would hold all of human knowledge, has always been a problematic one. Even with the rise of digital technologies, with its capacity for storage and its sophisticated search tools, Koevoets argues that the reality is both more complex and more mundane than the dream. Introducing her first criticism, she explains that “While the fantasy of a (digital) Universal Library may be philosophically or metaphysically compelling, the politics of selection and access – and thus of ordering techniques – are ever present on the Web.”
Next to the fundamental fact that every library is by definition selective in its collection of texts, Koevoets points out that technology is a social construct and thus not value-neutral. Our interactions with online spaces are governed by algorithms, which often conform to market forces and increasingly define and dominate how information is presented to us. In this way, largely invisible processes like ranking algorithms are becoming co-producers of authority, and to some, “the most pervasive source of bias in the history of research.” She ends this section with the essential question of the essay: “Under such conditions, how can webs of feminist knowledge be represented online?”
With the problems exposed, Koevoets brings forward a case study called FRAGEN: The FRAmes on GENder in Europe project, a digital feminist library constructing an online database of core feminist texts from all 27 EU countries, and Croatia and Turkey. The first, key difference between this project, and say, that of the Google Books project, is that FRAGEN tends towards specificity rather than totalizing inclusivity. The second, is the issue of transparency. FRAGEN’s approach to selection does not pretend to be neutral nor exhaustive. The library openly shares the identity of its librarians: key feminist figures from each of the 29 states, all chosen by committee. It also shares insights into the criteria by which these key figures were asked to select texts for a “longlist,” then on how “longlists” were pared down into “shortlists" of ten texts per country. Koevoets argues that “the combination of transparency and the way in which different local views and conceptualizations were used to provide access to the database via multiple route of entry (for instance by country, author, topic: etc.) lends the database a certain fluidity.”
The last section of the essay focuses on the website of the database, an interface which allows and invites other researchers to reflect and comment on the library texts in a comparative way. This is another way in which the FRAGEN database and website are set up to actively eschew claims to objectivity, and to represent the constellations of feminist knowledge in all their partiality.
In conclusion, Koevoets posits that it is the responsibility of every digital librarian, and feminist researcher, to take seriously the implications and assumptions that are built into the very structure of online knowledge spaces. “In order to make feminist knowledge accessible online, not only the politics of selection, but also the politics of the index must be addressed.”
Opinion / notes
Sanne Koevoets brings together issues of archive politics, bias in technology, and feminist methodology in a clear and concise way. I am especially interested by her critique on ranking algorithms and how it ties into her rejection of the ‘universal’ anything, which is also a key pillar in the understanding of situated knowledge.
The Suspicious Archive
by James T. Hong
Abstract (50)
In this essay, Taiwanese artist James T. Hong questions two main aspects of the modern ‘archive’. The first is its interpretation and subsequent relation to its reader, where Hong focuses on the effect of an archive rather than its content. The second is a critique of English as the dominant language used to deal with the preservation and distribution of knowledge.
Synopses (500)
James T. Hong is a filmmaker and artist based in Taiwan, and in this two-part essay he explores his suspicions on the ‘archive’; a critique built on the fundamental questions of interpretation and linguistics.
In part one, he considers a paranodal analysis of the archive as opposed to a forensic one. He asserts that the key to understanding an archive lies not in what it is (“a non-random collection of things”) but in the relationships between its intention, existence and subsequent interpretation by others. Following this, three very basic questions should be asked of any archive:
1. Why does this archive exist? 2. What is missing from the archive? 3. Why does this archive contain this item rather than another?
Hong develops his position by looking at the internet – which he sees as a kind of decentralized archive, one which is nevertheless completely hierarchical in action. He criticizes processes like SEME (Search Engine Manipulation Effect), and questions censorship on a general scale, which may not always be top-down, but is in any case a threat to agonism and diversity. Hong warns against the internet becoming a mirror of things we already know and accept. “Removing the “ugliness” cleanses the archive, and the archive is us for future generations. This cleansing is thus a gross manipulation of the record of our present world.” Tying this back to his core issue of interpretation, he ends this section with a quote by philosopher Cristina Lafont: “to be human is not primarily to be a rational animal, but first and foremost to be a self-interpreting animal.”
The implications of this ‘interpretiveness’ of humanity carry huge political and cultural weight when set against the linguistic nature of hermeneutic knowledge. “In a linguistically articulated world, language is not simply a set of arbitrary signs that refer to objects within the world; language is rather the very means with which the world shows itself to us. Interpretive understanding is always a mediation between the strange and the familiar in some kind of language.”
The power of language over our understanding of ourselves (through the archive or otherwise) is the main focus of Part 2 of the essay, subtitled Every Word Is a Prejudice. References to Nietszche, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, explore philosophical concepts of truth, objectivity and morality, while contemporary examples of the news media cycle are used to question the way reality is perceived and believed – in what language and to what audience?
The essay continues on to chart the rise of English as the world’s lingua franca, and its current dominance in literature, science and journalism. Hong then arrives at his critical argument: “I claim very simply and crudely that nothing is really true, that nothing really matters, unless or until it is in English. This could be called a form of “imperialist linguistic idealism,” and it goes hand in hand with the implicit, globalist assumption that nature’s preferred way of being represented is in English—scientific or otherwise.” This legacy of the English language, and its increasingly powerful gatekeepers, must be taken seriously.
The essay concludes with the simple but significant idea that though language in itself holds no intentions, power is invested in it by the people who use and promote them. It is therefore imperative that we ask not just why it is used but how it can be used in a better way.
Opinion / notes
It’s interesting to me that Hong’s criticism of language focuses on the way English is used instead of how it is constructed. He also proposes ways in which we can turn this usage on its head: “English can also be used as language of opposition, as a critique of itself, its assumptions, its users, its attendant ideologies, and its dominance. The world can be made bigger again, if we, at the very least, use different words and diverse concepts.” This view of language as a critical tool on discourse is very relevant to my interests in this project.