Key terms ("nakhuda" [upper left], "powers" [upper right], "weapons" [center right], "traffic" [center right], "clerk" [bottom center], and "mistress" [lower left]) in red and their contextual associations in black plotted in a two-dimensional space, generated using PCA on our custom trained WVM. The figure illustrates how specific words are spatially distributed based on their contextual similarities. The model has been trained for 2-grams: 150 dimensions, 20 iterations, 6 word window with negative sampling of 5.

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... examining these relationships, we gain insights into the semantic connections between terms, enabling a richer understanding of the corpus's multi-layered nature. Figure 2 represents a query using five key terms: "nakhuda" (a boat captain), "powers," "weapons," "traffic," "clerk," and "mistress." For example, the term "powers," chosen as one of the search terms, is used by colonial forces to refer to themselves, and it can be found in the upper right quadrant of the plot. ...

Context 2

... they emerged through iterative cycles of close and distant reading of IOR File 5. For demonstration purposes, we chose terms that produced a clear and evenly distributed arrangement in Figure 2. This distribution highlights distinct semantic fields within the corpus, with one notable exception. ...

Context 3

... spatial positioning of terms can sometimes reflect broader patterns in the data. In Figure 2, clusters on the right side of the plot largely correspond to colonial infrastructure, Western sovereignty, and the arms and slave trades. In contrast, the left side contains terms related to the lived experiences of enslaved individuals in the Gulf. ...

Context 4

... distinct clusters in Figure 2 were chosen deliberately to illustrate key discursive "neighborhoods" in the data. By using multiterm queries, we can uncover nuanced relationships between terms, offering a more granular understanding of how concepts are interconnected and contributing to broader themes in the debates surrounding slavery. ...