Living with Data: Aligning Data Studies and Data Activism Through a Focus on Everyday Experiences of Datafication

TLDR

Data studies has focused on identifying unequal data power relations, but has not aligned with data activism’s goal of mobilising data for social justice, leaving a gap in knowledge about everyday datafication experiences. The paper argues for urgent empirical research into everyday experiences of living with datafication to envision more just data arrangements. The authors propose two approaches that emphasize a vocabulary of emotions to capture everyday datafication experiences and guide the design of more just data conditions.

Abstract

In this paper I argue that there is an urgent need for more empirical research into everyday experiences of living with datafication, something that has not been prioritised in the emerging field of data studies to date. As a result of this absence, the knowledge produced within data studies is not as aligned to the aims of data activism as it might be. Data activism seeks to challenge existing, unequal data power relations and to mobilise data in order to enhance social justice, yet data studies has focused primarily on identifying the former and not on imagining the latter. To build a picture of what more just conditions of datafication might look like, I argue that it is important to take account of everyday experiences of datafication, of what people themselves say would enable them to live better with data and would constitute more just data arrangements, based on their experiences. I explore two possible approaches to this endeavour, both of which suggest the need for a vocabulary of emotions in researching everyday living with data.