Roopika Risam

Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies and of Comparative Literature at Dartmouth

This interview with Jill Walker Rettberg for Nightingale, the journal of the Data Visualization Society, discusses the situated nature of data. It examines the importance of moving away from the conception that data is “neutral” or “objective” and towards the understanding that data is constructed, partial, and created and presented in particular ways for specific purposes. We further discuss connections between data, migration, and mediation, as well as postcolonial and decolonial approaches to data.

This TED talk explores how digital media can create radical connections for migrants through the digital homes we create for ourselves online and considers the remarkable impact of social media on migrant communities that have been historically and are presently marginalized.

This article brings together quantitative textual analysis of news media articles from the United States and United Kingdom along with postcolonial theory and selfie scholarship to explore the representation of Syrian refugees in news media and their self-representation in selfies. The act of taking selfies, this essay proposes, offers a form of self-representation for migrants that produces agency, creates communities, and resists the inscription of refugees as objects of knowledge in the digital cultural record.