Reading Between the Lines…of Data

Lauren F. Klein, in her analysis of Thomas Jefferson and his data-storing tactics, The Image of Absence, comments on multiple ideas regarding the collection and interpretation of data. The most prominent idea featured in Klein’s work is the idea of “archival silence,” an idea that can simply be defined as “gaps in an archival record.” Though Jefferson was meticulous in his record-keeping, he would also reduce mounds of data regarding his slaves into small bits. Klein uses a particular slave of Jefferson, James Hemings, as an example, saying “Jefferson himself was at times required to recognize, if not to redress, the flawed logic that reduced Hemings’s life to a line of data.” Klein views this particular lack of record-keeping by Jefferson as an unfortunate sign of the times, showing that Jefferson played a large role in the silencing and subjugation of African-American slaves.

At the same time, Klein presents the reader with ways to combat the problem of “archival silence,” saying the reader ought to “look to the pathways of connection between persons and among groups.” Klein then presents a graphic showing the patterns of correspondence between Jefferson and others, concerning James Hemings. This graphic is not unlike those presented by Micki Kaufmen and the “Quantifying Kissinger” Team. Both graphics attempt to piece together information that is not explicitly presented in the data collected and attempt to display patterns, or “presences” (as described by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus), hidden within the data collected.

It is this uncovering of “archival silence” that seems to scare so many individuals today. Many Americans will not soon forget the Edward Snowden scandal, nor the subsequent report that showed the US government was in possession of millions of Americans’ phone records. Why did this scare so many people? Was it because people were afraid that the US Government knew who we were calling each and every day? The could be. But, maybe what is more important is what phone records don’t explicitly show. Maybe, by using Klein’s tactics to uncover archival silence, and by reading the patterns and “presences” within these phone calls, the US government can ascertain more information about the callers than is ever presented within the records themselves. Maybe what citizens have to fear most is not the uncovering of their data, but the patterns hidden behind that very data trail.