Final thoughts

Given a very low bar to learning Palladio, it would be a perfect tool to give it a try and possibly enter the sphere of network analysis. However, there are lurking risks beneath rashly diving into the water, harvesting a fantastic-looking visualization without critically thinking about the rationale behind the tool. As Emmanuelle Chaze elaborated on her blog, she witnessed many researchers were motivated by this recurring impulsion “I have my data, but I’m no IT specialist, how can I quickly visualize my networks?”, but many humanists willing to use digital tools remain reluctant to learn about their proper use first.

During my journey of exploring Palladio, I had a revelation that it’s dangerous to feed my data into the machine and wait for it to spit out a beautiful-looking graph. It’s like a “black box”. And it is risky to blindly trust a black box. If we don’t understand what algorithm it uses, we won’t be able to correctly interpret the results. Hence I focused on a seeming no-brainer question-what a node size represents-and from there dig in this question and uncover its underlying algorithm.

Admittedly, if you are a network analysis guru, this post may seem too rambling, but I guess my target audience would be beginners to network analysis and I encourage you to think critically along the way.

Also, I hope contextualizing the exploration of Palladio within an intellectual inquiry to the historical migration patterns–what drove the inquiry and what emerged from the data as a result of the deep engagement of the visualization- would be inspiring. And lastly, it’s my earnest hope to raise awareness around the Chinese Head Tax data as well as that history of discrimination and exclusion, at this unprecedented time (note: this site was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020).

I’d love to hear your feedback! You can find me on Twitter @saharazh.

More Resources

Hacking the Historical Data: Register of Chinese Immigrants to Canada, 1886-1949 Should you be interested in other work my colleague Allan Cho and I did for this Chinese Head Tax project, I invite you to take a look at this OSF project.

From Hermeneutics to Data to Networks: Data Extraction and Network Visualization of Historical by Marten Düring on Programming Historian, which focused on extracting “network-like” data from textual sources

Getting Started with Palladio by Miriam Posner, a great and clear introduction to Palladio functions

Network Analysis and Visualization a workshop by UBC Research Commons, a quick overview of network analysis concepts and a comparison between Palladio and Gephi