Towards an anthropology of data / edited by Rachel Douglas-Jones, Antonia Walford, and Nick Seaver.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Douglas-Jones, Rachel, editor.

Walford, Antonia, editor.

Seaver, Nick, 1985- editor.

Wiley-Blackwell (Firm), publisher.

Series:

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Special issue

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Special issue series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anthropology--Research--Methodology.

Anthropology.

Big data--Social aspects.

Big data.

Data sets--Social aspects.

Data sets.

Social aspects.

Anthropology--Research.

Physical Description:

179 pages : illustrations (color) ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chichester, West Sussex : John Wiley & Sons, 2021.

Summary:

"Data is everywhere. While 'big' data may have once seemed limited to business or high tech, ethnographers are now finding data -- and its attendant values and practices -- in their field sites around the world. Data has motivated a sweep of dystopian visions, signaling the invasion of privacy, political manipulation, or shadowy data doubles. Yet anthropologists have been cautious in taking data itself as an object of theoretical interest, even as the effects of data become manifest in our ethnographies. This volume presents a set of theoretically inventive pieces that engage with data across its many locations, from government databases to ecological field stations, from kitchen tables to concrete bunkers. The contributors demonstrate how thinking with data can be conceptually generative for anthropology, prompting us to reconsider our understanding of topics including bodies, persons, and the social itself. 'Data' is a notoriously slippery concept, often signaling claims to remote objectivity and universality; by putting data in its place, the pieces collected here develop conceptual tools that will prove useful for anthropologists who find 'data' in their data"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : towards an anthropology of data / Rachel Douglas-Jones, Antonia Walford & Nick Seaver

Becoming data : biometric IDs and the individual in 'Digital India' / Vijayanka Nair

Everything lies to a space : cultural data and spatial reality / Nick Seaver

The datafication of nature : data formations and new scales in natural history / Tahani Nadim

Future-proof : bunkered data centres and the selling of ultra-secure cloud storage / A.R.E. Taylor

From connection to contagion / Cori Hayden

Hacking anthropology / Hannah Knox

Data - ova- gene - data / Antonia Walford

Strategic translation : pollution, data, and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge / Sarah Blacker

Bodies of data : doubles, composites, and aggregates / Rachel Douglas-Jones

Data forward : an afterword / Bill Maurer.

Notes:

Originally published as volume 27, Supplement special Issue 2021 of The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781119816768

1119816769

OCLC:

1249092832