Three years ago, I reported for duty as the new Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy Juba (South Sudan). Working as a political reporting officer has some overlap with the skills of a good journalist in that it requires a lot of meeting people and understanding everything happening locally, and with all that comes a lot of taking notes to keep track of developments to be reported on. As diplomats like myself rotate in and out of different locations around the world, it is valuable to have a smooth transition between officers. Sometimes we do that by overlapping with our predecessor in the job for a few days to a week if we are lucky so they can help introduce us to their valuable contacts for local information. But, more realistically, we try to prepare “hand off” notes to give to the incoming officer.
After 36 hours of non-stop travel from the United States, I landed next to the Nile River in Juba, dropped my bags off at the shipping container I would call home for the year, and headed to my shared office at the Embassy before the work day ended to see what my predecessor had left for me there. On my desk was a range of precariously stacked towers of spiral-bound notebooks. It was like multiple rounds of “Jenga” had been played out on my desk. As I saw it, an office mate grinned at the mountains of chaotic notebooks and said, “Oh, yeah, your predecessor left you all his notes to help you get started.” I tried to hold back my irritation as I prepared to deal with the mess on my desk. I then noticed a bright post-it note on top of it all that said “just kidding.” My colleagues then reassured me it was just a “welcome” prank by my predecessor. They then gave me an organized binder with summaries of key political reporting priorities the team had been working on, contacts to seek out, and other useful information – the real “hand off” notes.
My emotional reaction had been of disbelief and anger that an able professional would leave such a thoughtless mess of notes (which turned out to not be the case). But, I remember that moment now as we discussed the importance of classification in our Digital Humanities practicum this week. If those notebooks had indeed been my predecessor’s idea of information organization and sharing, it would have taken me more time to figure out his system of note-taking and categorizing what was still useful and relevant and what was not than if I just threw it all in a shredder and figured out things on my own. In that scenario, one aspect of the power of classification was revealed: information itself is not valuable unless it is managed effectively.
But, the bigger lesson is classification isn’t a mechanism just to organize. The act of classifying generates meaning through the use of categories that both reflect inherent qualities in the data while also capturing what is valuable to who might be using that data and why. Or, as more fully spelled out from C. M. Sperberg-McQueen in our readings this week:
“Classification serves two purposes, each important: by grouping together objects which share properties, it brings like objects together into a class; by separating objects with unlike properties into separate classes, it distinguishes between things which are different in ways relevant to the purpose of the classification. The classification scheme itself, by identifying properties relevant for such judgments of similarity and dissimilarity, can make explicit a particular view concerning the nature of the objects being classified.”
On a simpler level, classification is the process of making both active and passive choices. What is included? What is left out? What do we draw attention to? What is taken for granted as “common knowledge” (which is itself loaded with assumptions)? In everyday life, we make classification choices (sometimes unconsciously from what language we choose to use, unconscious judgement about someone we choose not to interact with in our daily lives, etc.) but in Digital Humanities, such as in the creation of databases to categorize information we are collecting and analyzing, thoughtful design is required in order to make the data we classify consistent, coherent, retrievable, and valuable to the users. Living in the information age has shown us that an abundance of information through the internet does not necessarily mean we use all of that information or make better choices with more information. In fact, it is easy to be overwhelmed with choice. Thus, careful efforts at employing classification processes allows us to “farm” information so it can be harvested and nourish us toward better “health” (more productive outcomes). To simply bombard a user with raw data might be akin to getting lost in an overgrown tangle of forest.
But, classification is not an inherently easy task either, even if its importance can be easily understood. And, even when data has been thoughtfully classified, users of that data can take the same information and end up in very different places. Give a chef the same “farmed” information you would a basic home cook, and dinner might come out very differently in each of those kitchens.
By the end of my one year assignment in South Sudan, I had learned a lot, written a lot, and met many important figures in the political scene. But, in some ways, I felt one of my most important achievements was in taking time to organize everything I learned and putting together a more extensive set of organized “hand-off” notes to my successor, who I also arranged to arrive while I was still there so I could get him started with more than I had to work with. But, at the end of the day, those notes and briefings were still driven by classifications I had mentally made in the course of my work experience there. What was worth knowing and doing, and what was not worth mentioning? Part of this is driven by knowing the audience we both reported to in Washington, DC, but part of it was driven by my perceptions of the world and value judgements I make. I wonder now, three years later, what information I contributed is still accessible and relevant to the current political officer at post, and what has vanished into the ether of our information atmosphere.
Works Cited:
“A Companion to Digital Humanities.” Accessed February 11, 2021. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405103213/9781405103213.xml&chunk.id=ss1-3-2&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-3-2&brand=default.