Data sharing for global, unspecified reuse

Abstract

This contribution has originally been conceived as the introduction to my dissertation, to be submitted in February 2022 to the University of Graz (Department of Sociology). In the dissertation, I take up the vast discourse on data sharing to argue that until now, the most influential positions (exemplified in the works of philosopher Sabina Leonelli and information scientists Christine L. Borgman) have construed their subject matter rather narrowly, both in terms of the dominant case studies as well as in focusing on the narrowly stated epistemic goals of the Open Science movement (of ensuring reproducibility, transparency, and data reuse, say). I take issue with both of these claims based on a series of empirical case studies, to show that data sharing is broader than has hitherto been assumed, especially in terms of its aims which have, by and large, been modelled along the lines of enabling unspecified, global data reuse. With this preprint, I explain what this means based on an analysis of three discourses, all pertaining to data sharing: Discussions predominantly found within information science documenting a tremendous variability of data types, formats, practices, and sharing behaviour, and an empirical literature that has frequently overlooked the difficulties in accounting for data practices at the level of faculties, research groups, departments, or universities, as well as a more critical discourse that has recently emerged around the factors that inhibit data sharing and reuse, such as the situatedness and contextuality of data practices. The contribution documents a growing awareness of the situated nature of data practices, in particular with respect to research activities in the global south. It further documents mounting evidence for what has been called data contextuality, discussions that ensued from the observation, already a decade old, that “data” are impossible to define, leading to a view now known as the relational view of data (data as potential evidence for knowledge claims).