Data Dialogues – Details, episodes & analysis

In this bonus episode for Season 3, Madhuri Karak speaks with Michelle Thorne (Green Web Foundation) and Shannon Dosemagen (Open Environmental Data Project), two co-founders of Open Climate. Together, they delve into curated collision, a knowledge commons for climate information, and the importance of open for climate action.

In this episode, we look into the painstaking compilation of data previously inaccessible and scattered between different government agencies, that is finally shedding light on an extractive industry with massive environmental climate and livelihood consequences: sand mining. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Siddharth Agarwal about India Sand Watch, an environmental accountability project with an open data platform at its heart.

Season 3 of Data Dialogues features interviews with different folks working at the intersection of the open and climate movements. In the trailer, host Madhuri Karak outlines what you can expect from this season's guests.

In our last episode, we get into what happens when mapping is stuck in bureaucratic limbo. In order to document harm from rampant resource extraction and loss of livelihoods, communities are turning to monitoring their environments. You’ll hear from lawyer Andiko Mancayo, policy expert Anne-Sophie Gindroz, and several others you’ll recognize from earlier in the season.

In this episode, you’ll meet anthropologist Sophie Chao and a few others you’ve already encountered earlier in the season - social scientist Micah Fisher, political ecologist Irendra Radjawali and scholar Rini Astuti. We discuss the limitations of modern cartography and what we miss when we privilege the visual above all other perspectives.

In this episode, you’ll hear indigenous leader Effendi Buhing from the village of Kinipan in Central Kalimantan, our interpreter Ayu Septiari who translated between Indonesian Bahasa and English, and we talk about Kinipan’s ongoing fight to save its land and forest from the palm oil company PT. Sawit Mandari Lestari, or PT-SML.

In Episode 3, Madhuri speaks with Jaringan Kerja Pemetaan Partisipatif, or the Indonesian Community Mapping Network’s Imam Hanafi, Muhammad Husen, and Imam Masud, and the former secretary of Indonesia's Indigenous Peoples Alliance, Abdon Nababan.

In this episode, you’ll hear from some folks you met in episode 1: journalist Bagja Hidayat, social scientist Micah Fisher, policy advocate Anne-Sophie Gindroz. Two new voices include political ecologist Irendra Radjawali and scholar Rini Astuti. Together with Madhuri, they dig deeper into the post-Suharto era in Indonesia, and the political conjuncture that created the perfect set of conditions for OneMap to emerge.

In this epsiode, Madhuri traces the global origins of OneMap and why institutions across the board, from corporate actors to civil society organizations, thought a map could usher in a new era of land governance in Indonesia. You’ll hear from journalist Bagja Hidayat, policy researcher Myrna Safitry, social scientist Micah Fisher, policy advocate Anne-Sophie Gindroz, and sustainability expert Gita Syahrani.

What does it take for scientists and lawyers to really work with communities - and how does it change them? In the final episode of Season 1, Angela talks with Natasha Udu-gama and Jill Habig about how they set up the conditions for community relationships, making the case for personal transformation and culture change in government, academia, and the law.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Natasha Udu-gama's conversation in Episode 16 and Jill Habig's conversation in Episode 17.

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Natasha Udu-gama (she/her) is the Community and International Relations Manager at Thriving Earth Exchange, an organization that brings together local leaders and scientists to create community based environmental solutions.‍

Jill Habig (she/her) founded Public Rights Project, a non-profit working with communities and all levels of government to proactively support civil rights.

‍Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.