assignment2

1. Introduction & Context
I worked on the biography of Hu Lanqi (1901 - 1994). The aim of the task was to take the information from Lanqi’s life story, as described on the Dekoloniale (2024) website, and make it visible on Wikidata in a structured, linked way. The aim is to turn the biography into data (ie. occupations, places and relationships) in order to make marginalised stories visible and link them to other known sources online. Through the task we learned about translating narrative text into data while being mindful of how choices like categories shape what become visible.

2. Personal Role & Responsibilities
There were four members in my group. While reading Lanqi’s biography, we made a list containing information we wanted to add to her Wikidata item. Lanqi already had an existing item with basic statements such as her name, birth year and date of death. We crossed off the data that was already present and then divided the remaining information among ourselves to translate into structured statements and
add individually. At first, I assisted my team members in entering data correctly while familiarising myself with the website – for example, exploring different properties, item identifiers (Q-numbers) and learning how to add references. Later, I began adding data independently. I was very interested in sources and added missing citations to several existing statements. It required a lot of time and attention to verify
each reference carefully to ensure accuracy. Within our group, we relied on a combination of materials – including books, academic research papers and the Dekoloniale (2024) website – to support the statements we added. Each source was reviewed closely before being cited, as we wanted to make sure that all references were both reliable and appropriate for Wikidata’s verifiability standards. As discussed in the workshop, using Dekoloniale as a source is valuable because it helps preserve and reference knowledge that might otherwise become inaccessible once the project’s funding and web hosting end. Initially, we added Dekoloniale only as a web link, but during the workshop a dedicated Wikidata item for the project (Dekoloniale – Q136450525) was created. This allowed us to cite it properly using the “stated in” (P248) property when adding references. Afterwards, I reviewed the data we had entered and updated the older references to link to the new Dekoloniale item.

3. Methodological Approach
When selecting data to add, we prioritised information that could be clearly translated into structured data and verified through reliable sources. We focused on details that were both relevant to Lanqi’s life and representable within Wikidata’s ontology. This required identifying suitable properties for each piece of information – for example ‘occupation (P106)’, ‘place of detention (P2632)’ and ‘member of (P463)’ – and then entering them as statements consisting of a property and a corresponding value. To ensure consistency across our edits, we followed Wikidata’s data modeling conventions. This included adding qualifiers to provide context such as time or location and references to support verifiability. We also paid attention to the overall structure of each item, aiming to make our contributions machine-readable and properly linked to related items (Q-IDs). The aim of working in this structured way is to maintain accuracy and allow our data to integrate into the wider knowledge graph of Wikidata.

4. Challenges & Considerations
I was personally interested in the nuances of Lanqi’s story but found it challenging to represent these complexities clearly within Wikidata’s structure. The platform is designed for factual, verifiable statements, which makes it difficult to include longer narratives or interpretive information. Lanqi supported anti-imperialist and socialist movements but did not fully share the Communist Party’s ideology. After returning to China, she initially held high-ranking positions within the military and women’s organisations, but during the Anti-Rightist Campaign she was accused of being a “rightist” and persecuted, later rehabilitated and reinstated to official positions. This complex relationship to the new
Chinese state cannot easily be expressed through simple properties such as ‘member of (P463)’ or ‘affiliation (P1416)’, as Wikidata’s ontology allows little room for ideological nuance or changing political contexts. We experimented with representing these aspects using the property ‘significant event (P793)’ to record key experiences. We also discussed how to model intellectual relationships and her role as an inspiration for literary works, though these were difficult to capture within existing statement types.

5. Critical Reflection
Working with Lanqi’s biography made it clear that translating narrative text into structured data isn’t a neutral process. Each decision about which property or category to use involved interpretation and judgment about what aspects of her life were important to include in her Wikidata item. As (Bowker & Leigh Star (2000) argue, classifications act as social and political infrastructures that shape what becomes visible and what is left out. Similarly, Ford & Iliadis (2023) describe Wikidata as a form of semantic infrastructure sustained by social participation and technical standardisation, showing how knowledge production on the platform depends on both community processes and data structures. In our work,
Wikidata’s ontology functioned as such an infrastructure – organising knowledge through standardised properties like ‘occupation (P106)’ or ‘member of (P463)’, while limiting how complex or ambiguous experiences could be represented within its data model.

6. Conclusion
Contributing to Wikidata required learning its ontology, editing practices and community conventions, but also reflecting on how data modeling shapes what kinds of knowledge become visible. Through this process, I came to understand curating as a form of knowledge production that operates within – and sometimes against – existing infrastructural boundaries. The experience highlighted both the potential of linked open data to make marginalised histories more visible and the importance of remaining critical of how these knowledge infrastructures continue to define what counts as legitimate or verifiable information.

References
C. Bowker, G., & Leigh Star, S. (2000). Why Classification Matter. In Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (pp. 319–326). MIT Press.

Dekoloniale: Memory Culture in the Postcolonial Era. (2024). Dekoloniale.
https://dekoloniale.de/en/about

Ford, H., & Iliadis, A. (2023). Wikidata as Semantic Infrastructure: Knowledge Representation, Data
Labor, and Truth in a More-Than-Technical Project. Social Media + Society, 9(3),
20563051231195552. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231195552