Quién es Quién Wiki (QQW)
“‘It’s not about building a system but an instrument, a logic specific to power relations and the struggles that engage around them,’ said Michel Foucault in his book ‘A Dialogue on Power and Other Conversations.’ Following the logic of the French philosopher, we build tools and instruments around the QuiénEsQuién.Wiki database to better explain power relations and how to fight against them.”
Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research(PODER) founded (in 2013) and hosts QQW, the largest open data source on businesspeople (including beneficial ownership), companies, and procurement data in Latin America, which contains nearly 8 million individual entries.
This project has been adapted throughout the region, mainly as the data technology backbone of journalism projects focusing on corporate capture. QQW began with foundational academic research, conducted between 2009-13, which identified corporate interlock, but also the revolving door and quid pro quo bargains between Mexico’s business elite and the country’s president (dating back to 1959), as the mechanism by which theMexican Business Councilcaptured and continues to capture the State.
According to its website, “QuiénEsQuién.Wiki is a platform that provides data from various sources and allows for the mapping of economic and political elites in Latin America, thus exposing the phenomenon of State capture. The purpose of building a Latin American database is to facilitate the detection of capture patterns, such as opacity, corruption, and impunity. [QQW] is promoted by PODER, built entirely using open-source software, and always based on open data principles. The information is open to [CSOs], media, academics, researchers, and other actors seeking to highlight State capture and other associated phenomena. (…) [We] build tools and instruments around the QuiénEsQuién.Wiki database to better explain power relations and how to fight against them.”
Select examples of QQW’s data mapping and visualization projects include: