Understanding citizen data practices from a feminist perspective

Abstract

This chapter traces the relevance of practice theory for understanding datafication from a feminist perspective. The first section shows how the practice paradigm, as developed in the social sciences and in media studies, can be applied in the study of data practices. Here it is argued that the notion of data practice incorporates a range of practices that may not be deemed or intended to be explicitly political, and thus allows us to analyse data politics and power relations in seemingly mundane, everyday settings. The chapter then introduces how the notion of ‘care’, as developed in feminist science and technology studies (de la Bellacasa, 2011), can be a productive analytical and critical approach when scrutinizing the manifestation of power relations in data practices. Approaching data power in everyday data practices as ‘matters of care’ allows us to account for their affective, embodied, and material elements, including the habitually devalued human labour of data users, activists, producers, consumers, and citizens. Outlining briefly justice (Dencik et al., 2016; Taylor 2017) and ethics approaches to data power, it is suggested that the notion of care inserts particularity and empathy in social justice frameworks. In this way the chapter maps a theoretical roadmap of feminist data studies and practice theory, which is focused on materiality and embodiment and is committed to unsettling the power relation of race, class, gender, and ability in datafied worlds.