Research Moisés Kopper

Abstract

In the age of datafication, scholars have repeatedly shown that the counting of people is as much a political act as it is an enumerative one. As a result, grassroots initiatives are increasingly appropriating the art of statistics, transforming numbers into instruments of political and social resistance in the quest for a more authentic representation of society. Through an intersectional lens and attention to data politics, data infrastructures, and affective narratives, this project aims to delve into the nature and implications of bottom-up datafication, considering data an active agent in shaping social constructs. Drawing upon Actor-Network Theory and employing a qualitative mixed-methods approach, it seeks to unpack bottom-up datafication as a socio-technical phenomenon, exploring its networks, ontologies, ethics, and politics. By turning an ethnographic eye to two initiatives that collect data on and with marginalized citizens in Brazil and Germany from the bottom up, this project sheds light on the technopolitical infrastructure, the political impact, and the affective implications that engagement in the production and circulation of data from the bottom up has on identity, subjectivity, and imaginaries of citizenship. Finally, situated within critical data studies, this interdisciplinary project aims to develop an ethnographic theory of bottom-up datafication that contributes to the production of intersectional and inclusive data practices.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Kiel Alina

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data is being touted as the new frontier of development. Across the Global South, grassroots schemes have already been championing big data to promote citizen rights, increase state accountability, and reduce inequality. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of the use of data as a token of development, we know very little about the everyday realities of those making and circulating their own numbers. Recent scholarship focuses either on the politics of official statistics or on the activist use of statistics to denounce domination. We need granular and interlinked accounts of how, why, and when people engage with numbers to grasp their impacts on identity, subjectivity, and public policy. This requires a systematic and interlinked study of the top-down and bottom-up dimensions of data-for-development initiatives that seek to involve both citizens and experts in their design and implementation. This project explores how datafication is changing the means and meanings of sociocultural and political-economic belonging through local and everyday engagements with information in the Global South. In the context of data for development, it asks: how are datafication tools being mobilized by private and philanthropic actors (the politics of datafication)? And how are grassroots actors being involved in and using these tools to redefine their terms of citizenship (the poetics of datafication)? Empirically, the project investigates how multi-scalar partnerships between private donors and social impact businesses are marshaling technology in innovative ways to promote participatory and transformative forms of monitoring and evaluation. It critically examines how these organizations are refashioning the meaning and measuring of "social impact" by leveraging local knowledge via participatory technologies and citizen-generated data. The project also probes the grassroots epistemologies and quantification tools of bottom-up data ecosystems, the transnational networks of expertise and action unfolding from the intersection of top-down and bottom-up data, and the distinctive datafied subjectivities of engaged citizens involved in bottom-up data. Such a multidimensional focus on datafication is crucial to grasp the knowledge regimes and legibility politics generated by bottom-up quantification tools, but also the affective impacts of these tools in daily exchanges between grassroots experts and engaged citizens. The project will thus also assess the extent to which these data ecosystems are effectively filling data gaps, creating public recognition, galvanizing participation, and engaging decolonial development. This project is part of a broader ERC-funded Starting Grant, which studies the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. The broader project blends insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, it sheds light on the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. The individual project maximizes its societal and academic impact by taking part in the activities and results of this umbrella research. It will participate in the generation of applied outputs (such as policy-oriented reports, networking conferences, a video documentary, and a podcast) and analytical outputs (such as an interactive database to visualize and communicate results to non-academic audiences) aimed at critically probing the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Queiroz Alves Guilherme

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data has been extolled as the new frontier of development. Whereas western elite actors have contested big data for its flattening of social life and information extraction, grassroots initiatives have been championing big data to promote citizen rights, improve state accountability, and reduce inequality. InfoCitizen will: (1) study the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. We contend that for favela residents in Brazil, ethnic minorities in Portugal and Germany, and poor citizens in Tanzania and Kenya, far from splintering and prying, data has the potential to promote cultural change, political identity, and economic wellbeing via "better," "faster," and "more reliable" public and private statistics. (2) blend insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, we will illuminate the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. (3) combine archival, digital, audiovisual, and quanti-qualitative methods to unpack the tools—censuses, smartphones, policy reports—and actors—NGOs, data labs, legal commissions—crystallizing in the wake of grassroots numbers. We propose a global and comparative ethnography of datafied subjectivities and their interplay with transnational networks of expertise—such as think tanks, governments, and businesses. (4) generate applied and analytical research and a unique database of quantification tools and practices to critically probe the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Data has been extolled as the new frontier of development. Whereas western elite actors have contested big data for its flattening of social life and information extraction, grassroots initiatives have been championing big data to promote citizen rights, improve state accountability, and reduce inequality. InfoCitizen will: (1) study the citizenship practices and technologies coalescing around model initiatives to produce and circulate data in the Global South. We contend that for favela residents in Brazil, ethnic minorities in Portugal and Germany, and poor citizens in Tanzania and Kenya, far from splintering and prying, data has the potential to promote cultural change, political identity, and economic wellbeing via "better," "faster," and "more reliable" public and private statistics. (2) blend insights from the social studies of quantification, the anthropology of data, and citizenship studies to grasp data produced by experts and citizens across top-down and bottom-up data ecosystems. Via the concept of informational citizenship, we will illuminate the politics (infrastructures, epistemologies, visibilities) and poetics (experiences, socialities, and affects) of datafication, their impacts on law- and policymaking, and their effects on individuals, communities, and institutions in Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Tanzania, and Kenya. (3) combine archival, digital, audiovisual, and quanti-qualitative methods to unpack the tools—censuses, smartphones, policy reports—and actors—NGOs, data labs, legal commissions—crystallizing in the wake of grassroots numbers. We propose a global and comparative ethnography of datafied subjectivities and their interplay with transnational networks of expertise—such as think tanks, governments, and businesses. (4) generate applied and analytical research and a unique database of quantification tools and practices to critically probe the imaginaries, contingencies, materialities, and spaces of data for radical democratic change today.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kopper Moisés
• Fellow: Kopper Moisés

Research team(s)

• Development processes, actors and policies

Project type(s)

• Research Project