The Pitfall (and Advantages) of Data-Centric History

The Pitfall

In doing this project, I have begun to think about the implications of conducting what might be called "data-centric" history on a historical period that contains within it so much tangible human suffering and death. It might be uncontroversial to do data-centric historical work on the history of the New Deal, but when the history deals with events that directly led to the death and enslavement of hundreds of thousands of powerless laborers, data-centric history runs the risk of dehumanizing the phenomenon and hiding human experiences and tragedies behind data points.

Nonetheless, the data visualizations in this project provide important information about the history of the Coolie Trade. How can we balance the obvious value of data without falling into the impersonal abyss of numbers and "chartjunk"? 

Contextualize

If we are going to give visuals on the Coolie Trade or any other historical phenomenon, we must contextualize the data and provide background on the human dimension of these events. This is necessary not just for people to understand the visualizations, but also for them to understand the significance of the history beyond the data. In the historical community, there have been dozens of works written that detail the abuses and suffering of coolies throughout their journey in the Trade, but seldom is this information presented in a visual manner. Thus, in "doing" digital history, one cannot leverage the data without bringing the historical narrative that serves as the foundation to "meaningful" data. The reader must be aware that there is a story behind each data point, some ending in the death of hundreds of coolies. That is what I have attempted to do with the visuals (images) on this website, in addition to the brief explanation of the Coolie Trade. These two components help to balance the cold hard visuals with a reminder of what the individuals who participated in the Coolie Trade looked like and went through.

Advantages

But as I stated before, there is an advantage to leveraging data-centric history. In looking at the data in visually unique ways, we can come to different understandings and have new insights into the history that would not be immediately (and intuitively) visible in the written record. Additionally, data and data visualizations can make the "takeaway" more evident. By seeing these visualizations that deal with multiple Chinese ports, multiple destinations, and multiple Western nations involved, one intuitively grasps the global nature of the Coolie Trade. More typical narratives that might focus on the story of one laborer can tell that global story, but not in its entirety and not in a concise manner. 

Additionally, data can be easily utilized in comparative studies that span very different time periods. While traditional historical narratives become restricted by the setting of its time period (i.e. a 19th Century Cuban plantation), data transcends such restrictions and allows immediate comparisons between temporally different but thematically consistent trends in history. For example, a comparison between the Coolie Trade and other transnational migrations, like the African Slave Trade, the Jewish diaspora, or the modern trafficking of sex slaves is much easier to do with the data from each respective migration than with the individual narratives of those who lived through the migrations. Such data-driven comparisons, while missing that all-important historical narrative, can tell us important information about the nature of involuntary migrations, how they have changed and remained consistent, and can provide a foundation for qualitative study that could corroborate the data or guide further data-driven analysis.

Overall, I would argue that we cannot dispense with the personal historical narrative or histories that focus on the experiences of people who lived through the events of the past. Data can give us a better understanding of the grander scheme of the events and can even cause us to dig further into those parts that were previously unknown or unexplored, but it must be accompanied by context that gives the reader the fullest understanding of what they are looking at.