Role: Graduate Research Assistant, 2017-2020
Project Manager, 2018-2019
Website: we1s.ucsb.edu
Funded by a Mellon Foundation grant, the WhatEvery1Says (WE1S) project used computational methods such as topic modeling to examine public discourse about the humanities across millions of newspaper articles. As a research assistant, I developed research questions, managed a research team, analyzed and interpreted findings from topic models and other computational methods, and wrote up public-facing summaries of our results and recommendations for advocacy. In particular, I worked collaboratively to develop our interpretation protocol which operationalized our reading and analysis of topic models, and analyzed the role of the humanities in academia and ordinary life and the profile of specific humanistic fields such as literature, history, and philosophy.
This project-in-progress uses social network analysis of Indo-Caribbean organizations’ Instagram accounts to theorize a “digital diasporic consciousness.” Using metrics such as network connections (who follows who), reciprocity (who follows who back), centrality (which are the most “influential” or most followed accounts) and interconnection across geographic space, I will examine how members of the diaspora articulate Indo-Caribbean identity through social media and online technologies, negotiating the possibilities and tensions of digital connectivity. The network analysis will be contextualized with qualitative analysis and digital ethnography of my participation in Zoom workshops and Instagram Live broadcasts.This project began in 2020 with support from a Digital Humanities Graduate Student Fellowship from the University of Miami DH advisory committee.
This prototype project maps the circulation of Indo-Caribbean women writers' literary works through intellectual networks in the field of Indo-Caribbean feminist studies. Using an ego-centric network, it traces how Indo-Caribbean women writers were introduced to scholars in the field and by whom and their locations, thereby mapping the geography of their circulation. The project emphasizes a transnational, collaborative feminist ethic, centers invisible and informal intellectual labor, and prioritizes texture of data and process over product. It aims to give axpanded view of a Caribbean feminist intellectual network, illuminating collaborations across race, gender, nation, generation, and academic status.