2019:Diversity/Addressing knowledge equity in cultural heritage projects

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Diversity/Addressing knowledge equity in cultural heritage projects

Tu · Saturday 12:15 - 13:00

Title: Addressing knowledge equity in cultural heritage projects

Description

The principle of knowledge equity is now secured in our movement’s strategic direction. But what does that mean for wikimedians in practical, day-to-day terms? How do we apply the principles of knowledge equity to our work?

If it means strategically shifting the focus of our work, how do we make those decisions collectively and transparently? Given that we all have limited capacity, might we have to prioritise collaborations with marginalised communities over large powerful institutions? What if we are dependent on those powerful institutions for funding…? Are there ways we can address the interests of those institutions and work towards knowledge equity at the same time?  

For those of us who already run dedicated projects that centre specific marginalised communities and knowledges: What have we learned? Can we identify some best practices?

We would like to gather together folks from the movement interested in figuring this out together. We will share experiences and challenges, successes and failures. Whilst we don’t expect to solve this problem in one wikimania session we will try to gather some strategies and make connections as a starting point for further exploration.

Content and structure of the session

1. Introduction and presentation of case studies (20mins)
   • Sàpmi wiki - Åsa Paaske Gulbrandsen, Wikimedia Norway
   • Wikidata/Wikibase partnership model - Lucy Patterson, Wikimedia Germany
2. Group work (25mins)
   • Sharing thoughts and experiences around marginalised knowledge and cultural heritage projects in your context.

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

This session will address SDGs 5 (gender equality) and 10 (reduced inequalities) in the first instance: connecting wikimedians to strategise how to effectively increase visibility of marginalised communities, highlight injustice and lost histories, and diversify and enrich the global knowledge commons, increasing its value for all. In turn, a more equitable knowledge commons would feed many of the other sustainable development goals.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

• Gather a network of wikimedians interested to further develop guidelines for operationalising knowledge equity in the movement.
• Case studies of projects that have (attempted) to address this - both from the speakers and the audience.
• If possible some initial generalised strategies.

Session leader(s)

• Lucy Patterson
• Åsa Paaske Gulbrandsen

Usernames

• Lucy Patterson (WMDE) / 1ucyp
• Wikimedia username 2

Affiliation/country

• Wikimedia Germany
• Wikimedia Norway

E-mail contact

• lucy.patterson@wikimedia.de
• aasa@wikimedia.no

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Workshop to identify and try to solve problem
• Roundtable discussion forum

Length of session

If other than 20 minutes, specify how long

90 mins if possible. Minimum 1 hour.

Supporting work

Optional:

• Link 1
• Link 2

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room: flexible seating to allow rearrangement for small group discussions, projector & screen for case-study presentations

• Audience: 20-30 people. Should ideally currently be running a project with focus on knowledge equity, be interested in creating one, or involved in wikimedia strategy more generally and thinking about how to ensure greater equity.

• Recording: Not yet clear. Very possible that we'd rather not record and keep this session a safe-space for sharing failure and developing ideas. We will likely document via etherpad.