This handbook stems from the recognition that open data and gender justice movements and initiatives can greatly benefit from collaborations and cross-sections. It aims to compile and highlight existing research and emerging/established models of practices at the intersection of open data and gender justice.

The goal of this handbook is to communicate histories, concerns, and experiences of open data practices aimed at supporting and advancing gender justice and open availability and use of sex-disaggregated data, in Asia and globally, to a range of audiences. This includes open data practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, journalists, researchers, students.

There are two parts to the handbook. The Entries section offers foundational information distilled from reviews of global literature, outlines key initiatives and summarises challenges specific to various themes: gender dynamics within open data initiatives, non-binary gender and data, indigenous women and data, gender data gap and efforts to bridge them, barriers to accessing and using data for women, participatory methods in open data, gender indicators for monitoring SDGs, and feminist open government. Additionally, an entry titled Resources contains a curated set of readings, multimedia content, and software applications relevant to each of the themes covered in the handbook.

The Interviews section will have transcription of conversations that we have had with open data practitioners and researchers especially engaged in the Asian, African, and Latin American regions. The interviews are our attempt to document lived experiences and contextual knowledge of those working on open data and gender justice in the Asian region and elsewhere. The handbook has been conceptualised as an open and extensible document and this section will be populated in the forthcoming days.

It should be noted that most entries focus on women as the primary group facing gendered marginalisation. This is a direct result of open data, and data-driven development initiatives in general, treating gender as binary. We strongly reject a binary definition and believe that open data initiatives should adopt gender-inclusive practices. Accordingly, we have specifically focused on data on non-gender binary persons in an attempt to make this handbook useful for people across the gender spectrum.

Credits

Authored by Ambika Tandon, Vedika Pareek, and Tasneem Mewa

Edited by Ambika Tandon, Tasneem Mewa, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay

Supported by East-West Management Institute and Sinar Project

Published on PubPub developed and hosted by MIT’s Knowledge Futures Group

Shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors.