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Welcome to Kawan—our vibrant community of data heads and storytellers. We’re all about improving data literacy and sharing nuanced stories about Asia. Come hang!

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Editor's picks

Kontinentalist
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What Rivers Remind Us Of— issue #66

Indigeneity teaches us memory, and like rivers, carries us back to the contested places we call home, their interconnections, and the responsibilities they demand.

Munirah Mansoor
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Crafting Air Pasang Surut

Making meaning with Orang Laut Singapore for Hari Orang Pulau.

Recent Posts

Samira Hassan
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Dataviz in Asia (May 23')

I always joke that working in the field of data storytelling is like attending an eternal university—the learning (and unlearning) never really stops. At Kontinentalist, we're constantly rethinking our approaches to data storytelling, grounding them in lived experiences and contextual understandings. We strive to learn from different

Kontinentalist
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seasons are changing — issue #54

Coming from tropical Singapore, where it’s pretty much hot all year round, spring was never something I resonated with. It didn’t rouse in me feelings people associate with the end of winter: hope, joy, and revival. At most, I’d think of the fleeting beauty of Japanese sakura,

Samira Hassan
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Dataviz in Asia (April 24')

Spring is finally here! As my colleagues Zafirah, Munirah, Michael, and I brainstormed the theme for this issue, we found ourselves drawn to the transient essence of the season in April. It's a time marked by various new beginnings, with festivals such as Ponggal and Songkran happening, and

Nabilah Said
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What’s in an Asian year? Deconstructing how we think about time

Working on a story about different Asian new years made our Editorial Lead Nabilah reconsider her ideas about time. In this article, she shares how her research made her question our reliance on the Gregorian calendar and what we can learn from the various Asian calendar systems

Team Lapis
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Bringing Lapis to life: How we built a storytelling platform from scratch

After more than two years of hard work, our data storytelling platform Lapis is finally out in the wild! Building our platform as a small team has been a largely iterative process, one that underscores the value of collaboration in our craft and requires us to learn (and unlearn!) as

Kontinentalist
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The colours of girlhood — issue #53

Back in primary school, girls in my class used to circulate a dog-eared paperback copy of Judy Blume’s “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret”, giggling excitedly to the next person in line. I have fond memories of reading about 12-year-old Margaret’s adolescent adventures: getting her period

Griselda Gabriele
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How media workers can be more gender-sensitive

In October 2023, I had the opportunity to participate in a gender-sensitive reporting workshop with some amazing journalists, media workers, and NGO representatives from five Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines). It was organised by Public Media Alliance (PMA), a global association of public service media

Samira Hassan
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Dataviz in Asia (March 24')

For this month’s Dataviz in Asia, we’re highlighting works by two of our favourite female data viz practitioners. Shirley Wu and Gurman Bhatia both use data to amplify the contributions of women in the arts and entertainment industries. We’re self-professed patrons of the arts here at Kontinentalist

Zafirah Zein
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Applying visual metaphors: How we visualised period poverty in Asia

This microstory came about when Singaporean period care company Blood launched its “Period-Positive Workplaces” movement in 2022. A communications agency had sent over a press release of the initiative, which included survey findings on period shaming at work. Having never experienced bullying or pressure of any kind related to my

Kontinentalist
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Love, interrupted — issue #52

February means many things to us. For some, it’s a month of love which centres on that special day on the 14th. For others, it’s just another 29 days, each one not any more special than the other. For those of us who celebrate Chinese New Year, it’

Samira Hassan
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How we talked about sex (ed), baby

We share our process of creating a microstory about the evolution of sex education policy in Singapore over the past two decades, shedding light on its pivotal role in shaping the nation's attitude towards sexuality—and vice versa. We delve into how we collated and analysed over 200

Samira Hassan
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Dataviz in Asia (Feb 24')

Love is in the air this month, and data’s capturing every moment of it. For this issue of Dataviz in Asia, let’s look at all the creative ways that people are telling their stories of love through data visualisations.  First, let's explore the epic love triangle