Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action by Catherine D'Ignazio documents the grassroots data activists across the Americas who are building feminicide databases that mainstream institutions refuse to create — and in doing so, redefine what ethical data science can be.
About This Book
When governments and institutions fail to record the gender-related killings of women and girls, who counts the dead? Across Latin America and beyond, individuals, journalists, and researchers are doing exactly that — scouring news sources, assembling spreadsheets, and circulating data in creative and political forms. Drawing on the large-scale collaborative research project Data Against Feminicide, D'Ignazio maps this labour and its implications for data ethics and data feminism. This is not a book about statistics in the abstract; it is about the power of quantification when wielded by communities demanding justice, and about the profound limits of reducing gendered violence to aggregable data points. Essential reading for anyone working at the intersection of data, design, and social justice.
Key Features
- 392 pages of critical analysis, case studies, and theoretical framework drawing on activist data practices across the Americas
- Author: Catherine D'Ignazio, drawing on the Data Against Feminicide collaborative research project
- Published by MIT Press
What You'll Discover
- How feminicide data activists centre care, memory, and justice in their work — directly challenging the reigning logic of mainstream data science
- The concept of restorative and transformative data science: using systematic information first to heal communities from structural violence, then to envision its elimination
- The specific creative, intellectual, and emotional labour involved in assembling and circulating feminicide databases — and why that labour is politically significant
- The possibilities and limitations of quantification when the goal is not insight but the elimination of gender-related violence entirely
About the Author
Catherine D'Ignazio is the author of this study, developed through her leadership of Data Against Feminicide, a large-scale collaborative research project examining activist data practices across the Americas. Her work sits at the intersection of data ethics, feminist theory, and social justice.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 392
- Dimensions: 20 cm x 22 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780262048873
- Publisher: MIT Press
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Researchers and practitioners working in data ethics, feminist scholarship, information design, and social justice; designers and technologists questioning whose data gets built and why.