Embedded data activism: the institutionalization of a grassroots environmental data initiative in China

Abstract This study explores how a citizen-led environmental data initiative first emerged as bottom-up data activism and was then co-opted by a state-sponsored environmental campaign in China. This research employs the social movement institutionalization perspective to explore the interplay between environmental data activism and authoritarian political institutions. It investigates how grassroots activists contest and collaborate with institutional actors, thereby reshaping data activism tactics and strategies under a specific political opportunity structure. Our analysis demonstrates the institutionalization of data activism, which results in the coexistence of contention and collaboration between civil and institutional actors. This study is expected to advance the scholarship on data activism by highlighting the institutional environment within which data activism is shaped in a nondemocratic context.