A Conversation About Data on Race & Ethnicity Around the World

The Black Lives Matter and Indigenous rights movements, as well as international migration in recent years have raised awareness of issues around inequalities because of race and ethnicity. In turn, this has prompted many organisations and groups such as IASSIST to reexamine their own understanding and knowledge, processes and practices. In response, the IASSIST Anti-Racism Interest Group was formed and brought together data stewards and librarians who had some or no prior expertise but who were interested in having a conversation about race and ethnicity in terms of data available for research and exploring how they could support the vital work in this field. This webinar took place on November 30, 2022, 11 am - 12:30 pm EST. It was organized by the Anti-Racism Resources Interest Group and the IASSIST Professional Development Committee and marks the beginning of that conversation with a focus on the data that is available for research. Bringing together a panel of data stewards and librarians from 4 countries - Canada, the US, the UK and Germany - this webinar aims to discuss and review these key questions: How are race and ethnicity recorded in the national Censuses and other key data sources? Have these definitions changed over time? What groups are identified, how much detail is available? What are some of the key issues with these data?