Using information visualisation to give voice to a historical community

Abstract

During the Anglo-Boer War a community of women, children and some men were detained in the Mafeking concentration camp. A number of women described their war experiences some years after. The reliability of these testimonies have however been questioned by various authors. Their written testimonies are known as the Huyser collection. The study presents an Information Visualisation solution to visually represent the coherence of facts within the testimonies. The coherence theory states that the truth value of a proposition consists in its coherence within a set of propositions. By visually representing the coherence of the facts in the testimonies, the possible truth value of the facts is highlighted, thereby giving voice to an historical community of former concentration camp inmates. In order to find a solution to the research problem, a design science research approach was followed. The Huyser collection is regarded as Indigenous Knowledge.