Making Data Visualizations, Contesting Security: Digital Humanities Meet International Relations

Claudia Aradau; Tobias Blanke; Ibtehal Hussain

doi:10.1093/isagsq/ksad061

Making Data Visualizations, Contesting Security: Digital Humanities Meet International Relations

Claudia Aradau, Tobias Blanke, Ibtehal Hussain

War Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

This article brings debates about data visualization in digital humanities in conversation with critical security studies and international relations. Building on feminist approaches in digital humanities, we explore the potential and limitations of data visualization as a critical method for research on (in)security. We unpack three aspects of making data visualizations by specifying "making"in this context as working, orienting, and critiquing. Making data visualizations as a methodological device is oriented by questions about the contestation of security and orients research by provoking new questions about practices of critique. Empirically, we situate data visualizations within British parliamentary debates about the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK's signals intelligence agency, which has garnered much public attention in the wake of the Snowden disclosures of transnational mass surveillance. We argue that data visualization in the parliamentary archive can destabilize dominant understandings of security, problematize narratives of security actors and oversight, and attend to the uneven presence of critique and contestation within and beyond parliamentary debates.

Original language	English
Article number	ksad061
Journal	Global Studies Quarterly
Volume	3
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksad061
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2023

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Making Data Visualizations, Contesting Security: Digital Humanities Meet International Relations

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