Future Anthropology Ethics and Datafication: Temporality and Responsibility in Research

Abstract

In this article, we argue for an ethics of big data that is embedded in the emergent processes through which data are made, interpreted, and mobilized in mundane everyday contexts and examine how this could potentially be played out in research practice. We situate this as a response to a current crisis in accountability that has arisen in the context of the use of digital data to inform societal interventions, which we propose calls for a future-oriented anthropological ethics situated in the ongoingness of life. Such a standpoint offers a revised approach to temporality and attends to the ethics of intervening and engaging with the uncertainty of what is as yet unknown rather than simply with an ethics of the past. It offers us an opportunity to think differently about big data and ethics and to create an alternative ethics for big data and their analysis.

Business Ethics and Quantification: Towards an Ethics of Numbers

“…Concerns around the sociology and ethics of quantification have appeared periodically across the social and human sciences, although these dispersed discussions have rarely been coordinated in a systematic way (Berman and Hirschman 2018 ; Espeland and Stevens 2008 ). Among these diverse areas are the history and philosophy of science (Desrosières 1993 ; Hacking 1990 ), sociology (Mau 2019 ; Espeland and Stevens 2008 ), accounting (Power 1997 ), and more recently digital and data studies communities (Pink and Lanzeni 2018 ; Dourish and Cruz 2018 ). From these diverse areas, some dialogue with the areas of business ethics and organization studies has been present (e.g., Baud et al 2019 ; Zyphur and Perides 2019 ; Beverungen et al 2015 ), although the diverse provenance of these ideas from different core literatures has rendered a coherent dialogue difficult.…”

“…In the meantime, issues of quantification have become increasingly pressing across diverse areas of social life. Particularly in the wake of the “big data” phenomenon (e.g., Mayer-Schoenberger and Cukier 2013 ) and the increasing use of digital platforms to collect quantitative data en masse (Sadowski 2019 ), understanding the ethics of quantification is a pressing social concern (Pink and Lanzeni 2018 ). Increasingly, quantitative data are not only used to inform managerial decisions but may constitute a form of management itself (Bruno et al 2014a , b ; van Dijk 2014 ), as critiques of “algorithmic management” explore the control possibilities of highly datafied workplaces (e.g., Beverungen et al 2019 , 2015 ).…”

“…Despite the growing interest and pressing need to understand the ethics of quantification, little work in business ethics currently exists although some have suggested preliminary steps toward establishing a research agenda around quantification (Pink and Lanzeni 2018 ; Espeland and Stevens 2007 ), particularly elaborating Foucauldian perspectives on measurement and governmentality (Wilson et al 2020 ; Chelli and Genrop 2013 ). Drawing on but broadening from these perspectives, the current paper takes up this agenda in the context of business ethics to build theory in this area.…”

Fremtider

“…Forskning i fremtiden er som naevnt ikke begraenset til et felt eller én disciplin, og vi ser en fremtidsorienteret antropologi vinde frem i disse år (Crapanzano, 2004;Escobar, 2015;Ferguson, 1999;Guyer, 2007;Miyazaki, 2004;Nielsen, 2014;Pink & Lanzeni, 2018;Salazar, Pink, Irving, & Sjöberg, 2017;Waltorp and Halse, 2013).…”

Biomedicine, self and society: An agenda for collaboration and engagement

“…Simultaneously, practices such as ‘biohacking’ and the ‘DIY Bio’ movement challenge who should be permitted to create hybrid artificial-organic bodies and techno-scientific identities, pushing the limits of current medical and legal understandings of control and responsibility. The increased datafication of the human body is arguably reducing aspects of the physical human form to inexhaustible datasets ( Parry & Greenhough, 2017), signalling the prospect of data flowing freely within and beyond the biomedical sphere, amplifying social and ethical concerns around the privacy and security of individuals, groups, and populations ( Pink & Lanzeni, 2018).…”