Submissions:2021/Decolonizing Wikipedia

This submission has been accepted for WikiConference North America 2021.

Etherpad

Title:

Decolonizing Wikipedia

Theme:

Global & Local

Type of session:

Presentation

Abstract:

Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) students have provided additional content on Wikipedia to give voice to underrepresented people and topics from the Global South for the past two years in a class on intercultural and international communication. The students submitted and edited English-language entries on cultural, social, and political topics related to the Global South. The aim of this project is to “to decolonize Wikipedia” by contributing content on regions that have historically suffered from a lack of representation in academia, media, and the online world. Not only are issues concerning the Global South not well addressed on Wikipedia, but they are also in need of improvement,” she said, stressing that NU-Q students are uniquely positioned to lead on efforts to introduce and translate content about the region as multilingual writers and researchers from the region. In this presentation I will be talking about the lessons learned from this project, the challenges, and the opportunities.

Academic Peer Review option:

No

Author name:

Banu Akdenizli

E-mail address:

banu.akdenizli@northwestern.edu

Wikimedia username:

BAkdenizli

Affiliated organization(s):

Northwestern University Qatar

Estimated time:

20-30 minutes

Special requests:

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?:

No

If your submission is not accepted, would you be open to presenting your topic in another part of the program? (e.g. lightning talk or unconference session)

Yes