Charting the Lives of José Barrio & Carmen Ibañez

When looking at the testimonies of José Barrio and Carmen Ibañez, knowing how their two stories connect and differ helps foster a better understanding of them. With the various charts and graphs below these stories are visualized in new ways and show the process gone through to help piece together their testimonies and lives as a whole.

The first chart below shows the frequency of words throughout both Barrio and Ibañez’s testimonies without us taking out any of the words such as the interviewer’s last name “Boehm” and the time stamps such as “00” and “05.” Looking at the raw data of word frequency between both testimonies shows an untouched look at the words that show up and shows minor connections between the two testimonies. These minor connections are interesting, however going through and cleaning up the data allows for major connections to be explored.

After going through and scanning the testimonies for important locations, people, and organization, this next chart below is one showing the frequency of those mentioned throughout both Barrio and Ibañez’s testimonies. This chart then shows more major connections established between the two testimonies. In regards to locations, the city of Madrid comes up the most and when looking at people, the brothers in the testimonies come up quite a bit as well.

Next, these connections shown in our second chart lead us to our third chart, showing how these different figures and events overlapped within the two testimonies.

The goal of this data visualization chart is to aid readers and viewers in understanding how people, their lives, and their experiences during the Spanish Civil War are connected. Here, we have 5 main families, people, themes, or time periods: The Ibañez Family, Miguel Guzmán, the Post-Franco Dictatorship era, Military Involvement during the war, and the Barrio Family.

The different colors provide a symbolization of how different each experience was during this time period. They represent each individual or family’s experiences. They also allow for differentiation between the others. The lines connecting them also show all the different ways in which these events or themes are connected across time periods and individuals.

The point of displaying data in this way is to keep viewers interested, but also to make them understand just how common experiences were during this time period: both Aparicio and the Ibañez family experienced political persecution, both families had military involvement, and the list goes on.

While always interesting, we know that data and its implications can be inaccessible or difficult to read, interpret, and analyze for many individuals. Displaying important data in a way that is visually appealing has allowed us to tell the important stories of Carmen Ibañez and Jose Barrio in a way that matters and people will remember. Reading their stories on paper or via audio can be fulfilling, but telling their stories in a manner that is measurable and exciting to view can keep them alive for ages to come.