ZINE: “Data Dreams and Desires - Found Poetry”
Our final zine in the data justice for youth series showcases the hopes and dreams of the workers we spoke with, in the form of data poems.
At last, we are excited to share our fourth and final zine in our series about data justice in Ontario's youth homelessness and child welfare systems. This time we are exploring data work and the struggles and frustrations that workers experience when trying to use data to support the young people they serve. However, instead of just focusing on many of the issues that our research participants expressed, this final edition is centred around the hopes we heard from the people we spoke with, and it aims towards their visions for the future.
Click here to read Data Dreams and Desire: Found Poetry
Before we event dreamt up this dreamy zine, we had asked almost everyone we spoke to about their desires and aspirations for the work they do, especially thinking about data and how they are expected to use it. We found patterns in people’s responses and are using this zine to share those with you – highlighting the commonalities of workers’ issues and several important shared truths about them.
With some extra line breaks and fancy formatting, we’ve turned our interview excerpts into found poetry for you to read and reflect on. As you go through this zine, and the others in our series, we encourage you to reflect on the following questions that helped orient our investigations. It might be helpful to discuss these questions with colleagues or to just think through them on your own:
What stood out to you while going through the zines? What did you notice?
What frustrations or successes explored in this zine series reflect your own experiences? What are some aspects of your work that are not represented in these zines?
What changes or reforms would help you complete your everyday data work more easily? How could these changes affect clients and improve outcomes?
What other concerns might be productive areas for future research?
As you think through these questions, feel free to get in touch with us at the Research for Social Change Lab. We are always looking to deepen our relationships with the community whose work and ideas ground our research. We welcome feedback that validates or complicates our findings as this work is always ongoing.
The final zine in our series was compiled by one of our research assistants, Aron Lee Rosenberg, with contributions from Thamer Linklater and Sarah Cullingham. As well, this zine would not have been possible – nor would any of the series – without the contributions from our research participants whose words of wisdom made up the poetry presented here. Our lab manager, Collin Chepeka, helped with the layout for this zine, and Axel Lavictoire created the illustrations. And thanks to Naomi Nichols for her guidance and encouragement always. You can read our zine by clicking the link. Or, if you prefer a print copy, get in touch!
In the other zines in our series, we explored the data practices and tools that are commonly used in Ontario’s child welfare and youth homelessness systems. For a critical but colloquial look at some of the challenges workers face when pursuing data within the current system, you can take a look back at those zines and several others on our website here:
Zine 1: Data Justice: What? Why? Where?
Zine 2: Data Justice: Data for Who? Data for What?