Embodying Facts, Figures, and Faiths in Narrative Artistic Performances in Rural Bangladesh
This addresses the problem of marginalized communities being excluded by modern data visualization practices, offering implications for designing culturally accessible data narratives in HCI and visualization.
The study investigated how rural Bangladeshi communities use traditional performances like Puthi and Pot music to convey data and moral lessons, finding they blend facts, emotions, and aesthetics to adapt to technology and audience needs.
There is an increasing interest in telling serious stories with data. Designers organize information, construct narratives, and present findings to inform audiences. However, many of these practices emerge from modern information visualization rhetoric and ethical frameworks which may marginalize communities with low digital and media literacy. In a ten-month-long ethnographic study in three Bangladeshi villages, we investigated how these communities use entertainment and cultural practices, namely Puthi, Bhandari Gaan, and Pot music, to instruct, communicate traditional moral lessons and recall history. We found that these communities embrace polyvocality and multiple ethical frameworks in their performances, construct narratives combining factuality, emotionality, and aesthetics, and adapt their performances to changing technology and audience needs. Our findings provide HCI, visualization, and ethical data practitioners with implications for the design of accessible and culturally appropriate ways of presenting data narratives in data-driven systems.