About
The Project
This project is on human trafficking in the United States with a specific focus on the east coast. When faced with the idea of human trafficking, a majority of people most likely conjure up images of people being kidnapped and shipped to various third-world countries. It feels like a distant issue, one that will never affect them in their lifetime. This project is meant to bring awareness to the fact that it does, indeed, happen right here in our country, under our noses.This project is meant for the general public. It provides a place where people are able to see the facts about human trafficking and just how prevalent of an issue it is, as well as show them what they can do to help combat it. The research questions, to be more specific, are "what does human trafficking look like in the US", and "what can we do to stop it?"
This site includes data about the breakdown of gender, age, type of exploitation, and means of control of the total amount of victims reported in 2017. The graphs were created in Tableau. Tableau is an interactive data visualization platform. It allows its users to create interactive data analytics in the form of dashboards. These dashboards can be scrolled over and clicked on to provide more information about the data that was used. It is a way to make once confusing and complex numbers and correlations easy to understand.
On the "Where it's happening" page, there is a link to Omeka, an open source web-publishing platform, where Neatline was used to create an interactive map. On the map, which is of Pennsylvania and has the major highways marked on it, are points where human trafficking has been reported. Clicking on a point will bring up either the type of location the trafficking was reported (ie hotel, house, spa) or the county (if the exact premises were unknown). Links to the articles describing the incidents are included.
Also on this website is a "Laws and Notable Events" page, which incorporates a timeline created using Timeline JS3. This tool was used because it is interactive and shows the viewers when the laws were passed in relation to one another. Below the timeline are more in depth explanations about the laws.
This website was created using Scalar, an open source publishing platform that supports the efforts of digital scholars. It enables its users to upload media of various forms as well as embed digital tools made in other affiliated archives including, but not limited to, Critical Commons, PLAY!, and Internet Archive. It also supports Vimeo, Omeka, YouTube, and SoundCloud. These mediums can be incorporated with the user's own text and narrative, allowing them to create a custom-designed application of their work.
Digital Humanities
So to answer the question, “What is digital humanities?”, some of the largest components to mention are variety and collaboration. I think of digital humanities projects as collections of information from a whole variety of subjects and backgrounds. It’s a way to compile research that may be found in various different locations and put it in one place, while adding a story to it, so it’s more accessible and understandable to the public. An important part of digital humanities is the collaboration with others.Whether it is with mentors, peers, members of the community, or even strangers online, reaching out to and working with other people is a vital part of digital humanities. My thinking is that if the whole point behind it is to give the public access to knowledge they should be able to have, then why not make sure that all the knowledge that is out there gets shared?
Me
My name is Morgan McMullen and I am a junior at Bucknell University, class of 2021. I am majoring in linguistics and Russian with a minor in computer science. I chose to do my research on human trafficking because it is something I am passionate about and I have a desire to work for organizations that work to combat human trafficking in the future.This summer I was part of the Digital Scholars Summer Research Fellowship (dssrf) at Bucknell. This fellowship taught the members of its cohort how to use digital tools to answer research questions in a new way. The goal of the fellowship was to learn how to use the advantages of technology to create a dynamic digital resource, rather than a static website, that could present our research in a new way.
