Helena Suárez Val

Research Interests: feminist activism, data visualisation, cartography, feminicide

Supervisors: Professor Noortje Marres and Dr Maria Puig de la Bellacasa

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Research Topic

Project working title: Feminicide and digital activism: building a feminist community of practice

Since 2015, as part of my feminist activism, I have been recording cases of feminicide (gender-related violent deaths of women) in Uruguay, generating a database of cases and visualising the resulting data using Google Maps (Feminicidio Uruguay). This work can be located as part of a series of digital maps and data visualisations of feminicide created by feminist activists that have emerged across Latin America and in other parts of the world in recent years. My PhD project is an extension of and an investigation into this form of activist-research. The aim is to research the forms, methodologies, practices and effects of data practices in feminist activism and gender advocacy relating to feminicide; to situate this work in a wider field of data for advocacy; and to specify what is distinctive about feminist approaches to data.

Background

I hold MAs in Gender, Media and Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London and in Social Science Research from Warwick. I have an extensive career in web development and digital communications for human rights. I was co-organiser of the first three editions of Jornadas de Debate Feminista, an annual conference gathering academics and activists in the feminist movement from Uruguay and other countries in Latin America. I have worked with Amnesty International, the Global Call to Action against Poverty and Cotidiano Mujer. Occasionally, I have produced performance works by socially-engaged artists Rajni Shah (UK) and Hekatherina C. Delgado (Uruguay). I am currently collaborating with Catherine D'Ignazio (Data + Feminism Lab @ MIT) and Silvana Fumega (ILDA) on an action-research project called Data Against Feminicide.

You can hear me (in Spanish) commenting the news from a feminist perspective as co-conductor of the podcast #InformativoFeminista de Radio Nunca en Domingo, which is broadcast online and on community radios in more than six countries worldwide.

Publications

See my profile ResearchGate or Academia.edu for other work.

Contact

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies

University of Warwick CV4 7AL

Email: Helena dot Suarez-Val at warwick dot ac dot uk

Twitter: @ladelentes