Structured Data and Human Rights Violations

Abstract

This presentation examines how knowl­edge organization can help us understand human rights violations in a way that engenders both rational comprehension and emotional empathy. Knowl­edge organization can foster a useful awareness of injustice through its use of structured data, which serves as an intermediary step between the intimate narrative that appeals to our emotions and the quantified syntheses that engage our reason. This paper lists four possible effects. First, structured data allows for more accurate statistics. Second, structured data provides links from one isolated incident to other similar incidents. Third, structured data lends itself to regularity and consistency of display, thereby appealing to rational comprehension, but on a more direct emotional level. Finally, structured data lends itself to memorial devices that rely on discovery and chance encounters, rather than through memorial installations that people approach purposefully.