Look Who it Was Random video

The Uncertainty of Refugee Statistics | Funda Ustek | TEDxUCLWomen

725 views · Published 18 January 2017 · 11:08 · Indexed 6 October 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2017 · Nonprofits & Activism

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What are statistics not telling us? Using the example of refugees, Funda Ustek looks at how people can go missing in statistics: not just in the counting, but in categorical representation.  Often we are caught up with what the data shows us.  Ustek takes an alternative approach and identifies what the data doesn’t show us.  The missing figures can be windows into the lives of those aren’t counted, heard, or represented.

Dr. Funda Ustek is a Researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, at the Department of Sociology. She works on the issue of missing people in statistics. She obtained her Doctorate from University of Oxford, Department of Sociology (2015) on the invisible labour of women workers in the informal sector. She currently works on refugee and migration statistics to understand how mobile populations go missing in official statistics. She is originally from Istanbul, Turkey, and her travels and personal experience as a migrant (in Denmark and the UK) is an ever important inspiration for her work.

On "Intersect":
“Data is about inclusion and exclusion, through which some things become visible, and others invisible. It is when we think about how these two intersect –those things we include and those we exclude- we come to see other worlds becoming equally possible.”

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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