Data Visualization and Anthropology

Data Visualization (DV) is all the buzz in marketing. While everyone is rushing around trying to figure out how they can apply it to their business, I wanted to take a moment to discuss how the discipline of anthropology might benefit from DV.

Traditionally, anthropology is not a quantitative science. All Anthropologists are trained in some form of quantitative methods, and analysis – but our essence is in things observational or qualitative. However, that does not mean that we can’t use data visualization to help organize our data into quickly digestible elements for our client presentations, or in our own analysis to help us identify patterns in our field notes.

Here are a few of my thoughts on how we might use DV. I would love your input on additional applications.

Identifying Patterns in the Data: When using an ethnographic coding software such as Atlas.ti there’s a function where you can export a word count into an excel sheet and how many times they are mentioned in the notes. You can feed this list into one of many word cloud generators on Wordle (http://cli.gs/N31M5H) and it will show you which words “pop”. This can help you easily identify patterns in your field notes or transcripts.





Quantifying Findings: One of the biggest challenges for an anthropologist is the need to balance qualitative with quantitative. More often than not, clients want a quantitative element to their research projects, or at minimum want “proof” of our findings. Data visualization tools can help us put a “wow” factor in our presentations. IBM’s Many Eyes http://cli.gs/Gm8VZDis an open-source site where people make thousands of visualizations. The site allows you to enter your own data into the system and customize the various charts and graphs.






Find and Visualize Online Artifacts: Anthropologists (at least from what I’ve seen academically) are just starting to become attuned to plethora of data and artifacts that are publicly available online. Photo and video sites such as Flickr and YouTube are chock full of artifacts that we can draw upon to further contextualize our work. Tools such as Tag Galaxy (http://cli.gs/yYa5Tq) allow you to type in a keyword and see related tags and the photos that are associated with them.





There’s no doubt many more applications for data visualization to anthropology. The point here is that applied anthropologists have to make their findings accessible to their clients and the people they study. Data visualization is a great toolbox/practice that will support the discipline in presenting findings in a way that is mutually comprehendible and visually pleasing – especially in business. I see the field of data visualization as a way to continue to bridge the gap between the academy and the field, as anthropologists continue to work to find the right formula for conducting valid ethnography within the time and money constraints of the business world.