Wikidata:WikiProject African Literary Metadata

WikiProject African Literary Metadata is a Wikidata project dedicated to create and improve Wikidata's coverage of African informal literatures. It is part of the EU-funded Almeda project (African Literary Metadata (Q122841449)) initiated and led by Ashleigh Harris (Q122829029).

Background

African informal literatures, such as spoken-word poetry, street theatre, Facebook novels, TikTok poetry and other online genres are rarely catalogued and therefore exist outside of any structured metadata system. These informal, ephemeral and not-for-profit literary and oratory cultural forms are very popular on the African continent but highly invisible globally.

The project aims to develop and publish a metadata scheme specifically designed for these informal literary materials. The model will allow African-language genres to inhabit their own categories, rather than having to be forced into European literary ontologies. The project is going to get started in Wikidata and will most probably move to Wikibase.cloud or Wikibase at a later stage. The case studies for the project are realized by a team of African and European researchers.

For all the items on focus list of WikiProject African Literary Metadata see https://w.wiki/7vhw

For the Almeda experiments on Wikibase.cloud see https://almedatestwikibase.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Main_Page

Ways to contribute

There are several ways you can contribute to the project:

• Create Wikidata items for African literary genres, see f.e. madetembedzo (Q122839079)
• Create Wikidata items about African literary genres, see f.e Tungo zetu : msingi wa Mashairi na tungo nyinginezo (Q123202313)
• Create Wikidata items for Africa literary venues (such as theatres or open-air stages); see f.e Soweto Theatre (Q123171324)
• Create Wikidata items for African literary events (such as poetry festivals); see f.e. 1st Poetry Africa Festival (Q123076620)
• Create Wikidata items for African literary awards; see f.e. Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry (Q123171593)
• Identify authors and create author items whenever referenceable information can be found (see list of unidentified authors)
• Clean existing Wikidata items so that they conform to the data modelling guidelines laid out in the Data Structure section.
• Help improving the quality and completeness of the data. Add descriptions, statementns, references and identifiers. The subpages below may be a good point to start.
• Contribute to the discussion on how to model African informal literatrure.

Thank you - asante sana - ndatenda :-)

Data structure

• Venues
  • for properties see Wikidata:WikiProject Cultural venues
• Festivals
  • for properties see Wikidata:WikiProject Cultural events
• Awards
  • for properties see Wikidata:WikiProject Award
• Serialized (web) fiction
  • under discussion, see Wikidata:WikiProject African Literary Metadata/Data structure
• Works with multiple expressions
  • under discussion, see Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_African_Literary_Metadata/Data_structure

Participants

[+] Add yourself to the list

The participants listed below can be notified using the following template in discussions:
{{Ping project|African Literary Metadata}}

• Walkuraxx (talk) 07:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
• —M@sssly^✉ 16:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
• Ashha633 (talk) 13:17, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Related projects

• Wikidata:WikiProject Books
• Wikidata:WikiProject Periodicals
• Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts
• Wikidata:WikiProject Narration
• Wikidata:WikiProject Cultural events
• Wikidata:WikiProject Cultural venues
• Wikidata:WikiProject Award

Subpages

See full list of subpages

• African literatures
• African literary genres
  • Shona literary genres
  • Swahili literary genres
• African literary forms
  • Serialized fiction
    • per venue: Baraza, Drum, Grace, Taifa weekly , Atóka
• African Literary Awards
• Literary works translated into African languages
  • Literary works translated into Swahili