Visualizing Stories of Sexual Harassment in the Academy: Community Empowerment through Qualitative Data

Abstract

This paper presents the design report of an experimental data visualization artwork that deals with sexual harassment in academic environments. The visualization employs a qualitative dataset of stories of abuse and aims at nurturing emotional involvement by creating connections with the people behind the data. In the paper, we outline our theoretical background, considering previous research on anthropomorphic and artistic visualizations. Successively, we disclose our design approach and discuss the visualizations’ capability to nurture reflection, stimulate conversations, and empower the community of people fighting against sexual harassment in academia and beyond.