Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action
Book by Catherine D’Ignazio, $34.95
Why grassroots data activists in Latin America count feminicide—and how this vital social justice work challenges mainstream data science.
What isn’t counted doesn’t count. And mainstream institutions systematically fail to account for feminicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, including cisgender and transgender women. Against this failure, Counting Feminicide brings to the fore the work of data activists across the Americas who are documenting such murders—and challenging the reigning logic of data science by centering care, memory, and justice in their work. Drawing on Data Against Feminicide, a large-scale collaborative research project, Catherine D’Ignazio describes the creative, intellectual, and emotional labor of feminicide data activists who are at the forefront of a data ethics that rigorously and consistently takes power and people into account.
Purchase (or read open access!) on the MIT Press Website
Data Feminism
Book by Catherine D’Ignazio & Lauren F. Klein, $29.95
Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In Data Feminism, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics—one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought. Published in Spring 2020.
Purchase (or read open access!) on the MIT Press Website
Speaking Our Truths
Book by Make the Breast Pump Not Suck, $10
Speaking Our Truths: 27 Stories of What It’s Really Like to Breastfeed and Pump in the United States presents original interviews and stories about what parents in America go through to feed our children breastmilk. This research follows individual people on their breastfeeding journeys to explore the complex structural and institutional challenges that make breastfeeding a luxury instead of a choice – and provides some insights into what we can do to transform this reality. Published in 2018.
Purchase on the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck 2018 Website
Boston Coastline Future Past
Book by Catherine D’Ignazio & Andi Sutton, $20
Boston Coastline Future Past is a “walking data visualization” led by Catherine D’Ignazio and Andi Sutton in which 30 participants traced a route from the Climate Change prediction of the city’s coastline to its history, as a way of physically understanding the future and past of a city changing at scales that are difficult to see and comprehend.
This walk was produced in conjunction with the Decordova Museum’s Walking Sculpture exhibition, and featured several guest speakers–performance artists, scientific experts and policy makers who represent the future and the past. The stencils that people wore during the walk and used in the project are the contribution of artist Andi Sutton. Published in 2016.
Purchase the book for $20 at Lulu.com.
The City Formerly Known as Cambridge
Map by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things, $20
What if the city were read/write? What would the city look like if we could rename all of our public spaces, right now? In a series of thirteen renaming events between Spring 2006 – Summer 2007, the Institute for Infinitely Small Things collected over 300 new names for public spaces in Cambridge. The published map contains only the new names of Cambridge public spaces, along with the reasons why people renamed particular places. Renaming reasons were various. A young man named several places after his friends because “they deserve it”. A five-year-old renamed Dana Park to Monkey Park because “I like monkeys”. People renamed neighborhoods to recall past histories (i.e. renaming Area 4 to Candyland to commemorate Necco and Squirrel candy companies). One woman renamed Harvard Street to Ann Racliffe street because, she said, Radcliffe gave all the money to found Harvard and never got any street out of it. And Catherine D’Ignazio wrote an essay about the utility of such an apparently useless map. More.
This map is in the collections of the Cambridge Historical Society and the Boston Public Library. To buy a copy, please Paypal $20 to info@ikatun.com and email us your shipping address as well.
The New American Dictionary
Book by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things, $18.60
The New American Dictionary: Security/Fear Edition is a satirical take on the Merriam-Webster dictionary catalogs over 60 terms related to fear and security which have entered American English since 9/11, including new terms (“freedom fries”, “islamofascist”) and old terms which have been redefined (“torture”).
The New American Dictionary is a humorous, provocative book that calls for readers to pay attention to the ways in which terminology of fear, security and war have permeated American English post-9/11. Terms in the dictionary include: Islamofascist, Freedom Fries, Friendly Fire, Regime Change, Smart Bomb, Surge, and 62 more. Published in 2007.
Purchase the New American Dictionary on Amazon.com for $18.60.
The Border Crossed Us
Book by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things, $20+
The Border Crossed Us was a temporary public art installation by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things in 2011 that transplanted the US-Mexico border fence in southern Arizona to the UMass Amherst campus. The particular stretch of fence being represented was erected in 2007 by Homeland Security and now divides the Tohono O’odham Nation – the second largest Native American reservation in the country – into two parts. This 42-page, full-color book uses maps, essays, photographs, and a variety of other rich graphics to communicate the background and results of The Border Crossed Us.
To purchase the book, please make a donation of $20 or more to the Tohono O’odham Solidarity Project. Email us proof of donation and your address and we will send you a copy of the book.
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things
10 Stickers for $20
Our spatial justice art collective (2005 – present) which is always on the brink of not existing and includes somewhere between 0 – 25 people at any given time. Projects we are known for include Corporate Commands, The City Formerly Known as Cambridge, Transferring Patriotism, The New American Dictionary, and more.
To buy a sticker pack, please Paypal $20 to info@ikatun.com and email us your shipping address as well.