Working in service of the informatic and design needs of Indigenous-led organizations.
In collaboration with Kristin Welch, Executive Director of the Waking Women Healing Institute (WWHI)
Since 2022, the Data + Feminism Lab has collaborated with Waking Women Healing Institute to explore how data, maps and new technologies can serve their mission to protect against, heal from, and illuminate acts of settler colonialism that result in violence against Indigenous women/ girls/2spirit, Water, and Mother Earth. To date, the project has focused on two areas. First, we undertook research to catalog Indigenous-led community groups across Turtle Island which are working on the MMIW/P crisis. From that custom data set, we co-designed a map of these community defenders so that they may connect with each other, share information in specific cases, and generally build strength through networks and coalitions. Second, we have undertaken a database evaluation to understand what WWHI’s needs and priorities are for case documentation, and evaluated four popular database software packages against these criteria.
Students
Dení Lopez Lopez, Melissa Q. Teng, Kevin Lujan Lee, Patricia Garcia Iruegas, Ana Amelia Letelier, Betza Valdés, Hannah Shumway, Julia Camacho, Sophia Xiao
Process
Our collaboration has been grounded in feminist and Indigenous methodologies, including the four R’s of Indigenous research: relevance, respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. The Data + Feminism Lab sees itself working to co-design digital tools, databases and artifacts that support, sustain and amplify the vision and leadership of WWHI on the topic of MMIW/P. In the process, we are modeling how to build healthy collaborations between academic institutions and Indigenous-led organizations.
Thanks to Profs. Gabriella Carolini and Larry Susskind and Elizabeth Rule for leading the Indigenous Environmental Planning course from which our collaboration began.
Exhibitions
- DUSP MCP student Patricia Garcia Iruegas presented our co-designed map to community advocates and policymakers at a state-wide conference about MMIW/P in Wisconsin in Spring 2023.
- In August 2023, our team publicly launched the map at the Menominee Community College Cultural Center.
Website
wwhi-map.dataplusfeminism.mit.edu
Location
Menominee lands, present-day “Wisconsin”
Funder
DUSP Urban Science Seed Fund