Visualization of African knowledge to embody the spirit of African storytelling: principles, practices and evaluation

Abstract

Storytelling is part of the knowledge creation and transfer tradition and constitutes the knowledge base of many African cultures. Visualization, as a means of knowledge creation and transfer, goes back to the origins of human communication and provides a mechanism for extending and enhancing human cognitive capacity. Technological advances have made the consumption and creation of visualizations easier and more accessible. However, the connection between storytelling and the visualization of African knowledge has not been explored in depth, particularly not from the perspective of benchmarks and standards. Knowledge is context specific, and knowledge visualization guidelines need to be developed and validated within specific contexts too. Cross-cultural studies expose Western biases in design, as well as incorrect assumptions about the universality of concepts, methods, theories and models, which have led to inappropriate decisions. This workshop aims to focus on this gap in the literature by exploring the visualization of knowledge generated through storytelling, and then benchmarking the visualizations based on African context-specific guidelines.