The team’s discussions on the implications of using digital and data-centric methods revealed the need to take an interventional stance on our work. We collectively set out to critique the technological layers underpinning the database and to uncover their structural biases. To this end, we organised a set of workshops in which small groups conducted close-reading exercises of the CIDOC-CRM classes and properties implemented in the database. Using the 7.1.1 version of the CIDOC-CRM definition, we examined scope notes for interconnected classes and properties—for example, E21 Person > P107i is current or former member of > E74 Group. We applied the same method to a small sample of Getty AAT terms present in the database.
Throughout, we approached the material from a worlding and decolonial perspective, guided by a set of questions developed by Erin Canning in the context of the CIDOC-CRM Special Interest Group.
1. Does the definition reflect a diversity of opinions, backgrounds, and kinds of thought?
2. Is the definition or meaning of the concept sufficient, or too narrow or broad? Is there anything that you think might be missing from the definition?
3. Does the definition imply objectivity or neutrality, and if so, of what?
4. Is there any problematic or exclusionary language used in the label, scope note, or examples? Is the descriptive language used respectful to the larger communities of people invested in this concept?
5. To what extent can we use this definition to describe the intended WPC database field?
6. Who are all the people who are likely to be directly and indirectly affected by this concept? In what ways? Who may benefit, and who may be harmed---and what is counted as benefit/well-being, and as harm/suffering?
7. How might the impacts and perceptions of this design/project differ for users and communities with very different value-systems and social norms than those local or familiar to us?
Who/what isn’t represented in the sources that led to the articulation of this definition?
8. Who are the right people to review this definition? (In terms of representation).
9. Does this definition exclude other forms of documentation such as oral or visual (as opposed to written) which would be more appropriate for this field?
We used a shared spreadsheet to organise our discussions and gather the critiques we produced during the workshops. The consolidated texts were later added to the database interface as pop-up interactive windows.
MHU, AV