One of the consistent themes of this week's readings was the relationship between social spaces that exist on- and off-line. The Abir Ghattas talk, in reference to Harassmap and the conversations that surround it, serves as a good entry point. As a tool created in part to raise awareness and facilitate public discussion, as well as to visualize the ways in which urban spaces are marked and organized by sexual harassment and violence, the project must operate simultaneously in both spheres. However, as Ghattas mentions several times during the conversation, Harassmap and projects like it are very much oriented towards altering offline spaces, using its digital platform to draw attention to social and institutional barriers that work against substantial change. The way that these factors work together is interesting (in a cosmic sort of way), as the taboo surrounding conversations about harassment and violence is both social and structural in nature. As Ghattas points out, the fact that these are not considered topics for public conversation is echoed institutionally by the lack of a formal legal definition for an offense such as sexual harassment. This is compounded by hostility on the part of law enforcement officers, who in their hostility toward victims persist in challenging and ultimately "breaking" a law that does not exist.
This recalls MacCormick in an interesting way. Though MacCormick's focus on search engine logistics is a bit far afield of the conversations in which Harassmap participates, I find it noteworthy that in both cases there is a conflict between discrete and more fluid understandings of an issue. In MacCormick's case, we see how concepts such as relevance are broken down and mathematized for application in a search engine. When undertaken by humans, this process requires direct engagement with the information, which must be understood contextually. Conversely, a search engine typically deals with metainformation only, processing nothing but the numerical and spatial relationships between individual words. Returning to Harassmap, we can see some similar issues at play, as the lack of concrete legal standing renders sexual harassment and violence essentially invisible to institutions while relegation to private space precludes public conversation (the only exceptions being when offenses are re-framed as matters affecting family honor, rather than violations of individuals' rights and bodies). One of the most interesting strategies taken by Harassmap's creators is its division of labor. By collecting narratives from victims and survivors and using the map for storage and organization, the task of comprehension is shifted to the human operator while the system offers access and structure.
Noble highlights the importance of investigating the hands and minds that shape information tools such as this, as these technologies are often receptacles for, and amplifiers of, existing human biases. As the introduction points out, tools such as search engines, which are controlled almost exclusively by massive profit-driven organizations, are fast replacing other information organizations such as libraries and schools. While these organizations pose their own issues, what makes this an interesting reference at the moment is that Harassmap is conceived of as a distributed and community-based initiative. In this case, it is survivors and their supporters establishing networks and connecting incidents to locations. Additionally, since social media often drives mainstream news coverage, the task accomplished by Harassmap is very much contrary to that which is taken up by typical large data interests. While Harassmap is dedicated to bringing formerly private issues into the public consciousness, the goal of entities such as Google is to insert as much of the public into personal communication as possible. In this way, Harassmap and its relatives strive to reassert human agency in hostile digital spaces.
"Backup" Image (came out a bit small on the map)