Sokwanele’s Zimbabwe Election Events Mashup
As we discussed before (see Electoral Geography and Political Violence in Zimbabwe), Zimbabwe goes to the polls this Saturday. The long term field monitoring efforts of Zimbabwe Election Support Network and many others should ensure that the government’s tight restrictions on accreditation of international journalists doesn’t create an information draught. Whilst the usual international outlets (HRW, Economist, ICG) have already released rich contributions about the election, it still remains challenging to get a feel for ongoing events. Perhaps the lack of international media on the ground will widen the space for citizen journalism, and force observers to rely more on non-traditional sources of news.
I had hoped to have some of the maps from the Violations Early Warning System (ViEWS) of Zimbabwe Peace Project, but these have not hit the Net. The next best thing is Sokwanele.com’s Google Maps mashup of election-related incidents:
You can also read their blog post introducing the project. Like with Ushahidi.com, Sokwanele’s map will drive human rights documentalists (myself included) mad: its primary sources are unverified from the media, its mapping is necessarily imprecise since Google gazeteer for Zimbabwe is far from extensive, categories are overlapping, confusing and sometimes hyperbolic (“political cleansing”).
But that’s really not the point: it’s attractive, accurate and expressive enough, and provides easy links into the source materials. It’s an example of where information design trumps documentation. In Sokwanele’s own words, in the caveat about their data:
The map aims to give an impression of the scale and range of challenges facing Zimbabweans as we head towards the March 29th elections. Even though this is based on a small sample of information we have logged since July 2007, it clearly shows that conditions in the country are not conducive for a free and fair democractic elections.
The only thing I would suggest adding to it is a filter-by-date widget, so we can see what happens on election day.
Via Zuckerman.
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Dear Tom,
Thanks for bringing Sokwanele’s Google Map to attention. It is an impressive, quickly gathered, innovative use of Google Mapping, considering all of the technical problems in Zimbabwe — 14 kbit/sec dial up connections! government software to censor the Internet, and daily existential problems that make people feel as if they are living under water.
It’s a debate point about human rights documentarist reactions, but is beside the point as you say. Documentarists should not miss the real battle to prevent attacks while reporting months afterwards. Human rights groups should copy Sokwanele — get the information out while it is still useful in short-circuiting crimes underway.
The human rights story of the past 6 decades is a kind of Moore’s Law in crimes against humanity, in that the feedback between crime and comeuppance is ever shortened.
Check my blog at http://www.WageConflictWell.com for more thoughts on Zimbabwe’s current situation.
Mike Staresinic
26 Mar 08 at 15:42
Mike: the idea of a Moore’s Law applying to international justice is absolutely brilliant, and I hope you don’t mind if I steal it – obviously I’ll give you credit!
Paul Currion
29 Mar 08 at 9:46