Cultural History of South Asia

Distant view of historical linkages
between South Asia and the world.

From Canon to Covid

To be published as
“Visualizing the cultural history of South Asia”
in Maya Dodd and Nirmala Menon eds.
Practices of Digital Humanities in India: Learning by doing
(Digital Humanities Asia Series).
Taylor and Francis.

South Asia Map

Scope

  • Collect from Wikidata information about all persons who were either born or died in any territory that is currently part of South Asia
  • Visualize them to study migration of Persons of Importance

Research Workflow

  • Data acquisition
  • Data cleaning
  • Data analysis
  • Data visualiztion

Data acquisition

  • Acquire necessary data from Wikidata using Wikidata query and R

Linked Data

Wikidata follows the
Resource Description Framework (RDF)

South Asia Map

Knowledge Graph

  • RDF is a framework for representing data on the internet in an interconnected manner.
  • Represents the relationships between real world entities - persons, places, objects - as a network

Data cleaning

  • Check for integrity of the data
  • Dates and Location of Birth and Death are essential for completing the dataset
  • Occupation information can be optional

Tools used

  • Manual
  • Wikidata Query
  • R

Data analysis

  • Map migration by tracing Birth Location to Death Location
  • Analyse them according to Time
  • Tool used: R

Data visualization

  • Publish the results of the analysis to charts for easy comprehension

Tools used

  • R
  • Palladio
South Asia Migration South asia to outside South Asia 1826-1925 (same country change excluded, within South Asia excluded)
South Asia Migration south asia to outside south asia after 1925 (same country movement excluded)
South Asia Migration Outside south asia to south asia 1825-1925 (same country movement excluded)
South Asia Migration Outside south asia to south asia after 1925 (same country movment excluded)
South Asia Migration within south asia born 1826-1925
South Asia Migration within south asia born after 1925
South Asia Migration World to states after 1925
South Asia Migration states to world 1925-present
South Asia Migration within top ten states - decadal (birth + 30 years)
South Asia Migration within all states - decadal (birth + 30 years)
South Asia Migration top 10 states - decadal (birth + 30 years)
South Asia Migration Most frequent names among persons who moved from South Asia to the rest of the world and born between1825 and 1925
South Asia Migration Most frequent names of persons who moved from South Asia to rest of the world and born after 1925
South Asia Migration Spatial distribution of life and death at top urban centres in South Asia for persons in the field of ‘Entertainment and the Arts’ born after 1925.