Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-21/Featured content

Lemurbaby moves it with Madagascar: Featured content for the week

After a hiatus of several months, the Signpost is again bringing its readers a series of interviews with editors who create featured content in under-represented areas. This week we interviewed Lemurbaby, who has written four featured articles and a featured list since she began editing in July 2007. Lemurbaby shared with us what it is like to create high-quality articles on African topics. One was promoted this week.

What motivated you to write about Africa?

I decided to start writing articles on Wikipedia when I noticed how important topics were underdeveloped or non-existent, including those on Africa—in particular, Madagascar. The lack of a Music of Madagascar article spurred me to make the leap from reader to editor: Madagascar has one of the richest musical traditions in the world, and I realized that by contributing to Wikipedia I could help more people to discover the island and its cultural heritage. My work has allowed me to spend long periods overseas and I've come to appreciate that every country, every culture offers a wealth of knowledge, history and meaning. Immersing ourselves in a variety of cultures enriches us and our own world view enormously. Yet language and Euro-centrism, particularly in the way we hear about history and current events at school and in the media, has made it harder for the average anglophile to access this knowledge. Wikipedia is incredible because it allows anyone to bring what matters locally to the attention of the wider world.

What are the challenges in writing about these topics?

Most (but certainly not all) African countries have a less developed publishing infrastructure and only rarely are locally published books made available internationally. Many universities in Africa have brilliant students, but less library or classroom access to the material it takes to sustain a thriving research culture on campus. As a result, African voices are under-represented in print and especially in published research, so the sources we have to work with (often written by non-locals) reflect their authors' selectivity in their focus and in their decision about what's important enough to put down in print. The challenge is compounded by the fact that many pre-colonial African communities traditionally had a strong oral culture instead of a written one. When history did begin to be written, Europeans were often the ones doing the writing – once again colouring the selection and interpretation of what was recorded for posterity. That's why it can be very helpful to draw on histories in other disciplines, where the historians are potentially less caught up in the same kind of politics that may influence a traditional historian. To really understand anything well requires objective comparisons between many sources, but this is even more true when sources are limited and of questionable objectivity or quality themselves.

Why such a broad spread of topics? For example, why not write about animals and plant species?

I leave the wildlife articles to my fellow Mada-phile, Maky, who is the undisputed champion in that area. I think our work is complementary, and between us we've put a good dent in the work to be done on the most essential Madagascar topics. I try to balance articles on key political topics (figures like Ranavalona I, and important sites like the Queen's palace) with topics relevant to the average Malagasy person's life; these include those on music or food, because the latter are as relevant, if not more relevant, to the average person than the political topics. That's especially the case in a place like Madagascar, where political instability and abuses of power have been the source of so much disillusionment for the average person there.

Do you need to rely on French/Malagasy sources?

These days plenty of books have been written in English about most broad topics. One challenge is that English-language books on topics related to developing countries often tend to focus very heavily on the political elements, and frequently cover daily life topics in a cursory and exoticized way. That happens when not enough time is spent putting things into context to help the reader relate to and get beneath what seems "different" on the surface – to enable them to understand how things came to be and identify the meaning behind the superficial observations. Books are a good starting point, but usually journal articles will provide much more detail than books when the topic is narrow and detail is what you're after. Being able to research developing-country topics in the language of the former colonial power or the national/official language(s) really does open up options, though, and especially improves the opportunity to draw from resources written by nationals of that particular country (rather than relying on the interpretations of outsiders)."

How do you think Wikipedia can improve its coverage of Madagascar in particular, and Africa as a whole? What kinds of outreach are necessary?

I've considered writing about a country or a culture I don't know intimately, but came to the conclusion that for me, at least, it's really difficult. There's just too much information to sift through and it's hard to know how to prioritize it, synthesize it and bring out what matters in a coherent way without having a basic first-hand knowledge of the place and people. I'd feel like I was running the risk of not doing the topic justice and only perpetuating a superficial outsider's perspective rather than contributing anything really meaningful. But these topics urgently need to be covered, and there are many people with that basic knowledge who may be interested in sharing information about and promoting a country, but don't realize how easy it is to edit a Wikipedia article. The US Fulbright program, for instance, is known for sending US students overseas; it also brings students from developing countries to the US to complete graduate degrees. Reaching out to people like these through universities could be a good way to start. Similarly, development organizations (NGOs etc) have staff composed of locals and expats who are all typically multilingual, know the country very well, and tend to have a humanitarian spirit that lends itself to unpaid work like this! It's important to draw on those of us already committed to writing on Wikipedia by making sure all users are aware of the no-cost resources out there to support their research. Together we can make sure the developing countries of Africa and the world can get the coverage they've always deserved – and we'll all be the richer for it.