Dario Rodighiero, Frédéric Kaplan, and Boris Beaude, “Mapping Affinities in Academic Organizations”

This article by Rodighiero, Kaplan and Beaude addresses the visualization approach of mapping affinities for academic collectives. Affinities represent a similarity and closeness among figures. They are divided into the actual, which are ongoing collaborations, and the potential, which represent possible collaborations and synergies. Actual and potential affinities are mixed in the same space. In order to illustrate affinities, there is a process of transforming academic practices to digital traces and then to visual geometry. The paper addresses the challenges of illustrating the multi-dimensionality and multi-scale nature of affinities.

I found this paper to be relevant to our discussions of active archives. The consideration of the user’s perspectives and interactions connects to our previous discussion of reaching out to the general public. The article considers different target audiences and users of this visualization. It discusses representing the coexisting individuals and the collective, and that visualization gives importance to the individual. Interviews with these groups are conducted to gain qualitative insights on the effectiveness of the map. Additionally, different material representations of the affinity map offer different affordances for user interactions. Scholars are able to recognize themselves in the visualization and consider the merits of that representation. The affinity map also acts as a way to provide transparency and communicate the interactions in academic organizations to the external public.