Just good enough data: Figuring data citizenships through air pollution sensing and data stories

Abstract

Citizen sensing, or the use of low-cost and accessible digital technologies to monitor environments, has contributed to new types of environmental data and data practices. Through a discussion of participatory research into air pollution sensing with residents of northeastern Pennsylvania concerned about the effects of hydraulic fracturing, we examine how new technologies for generating environmental data also give rise to new problems for analysing and making sense of citizen-gathered data. After first outlining the citizen data practices we collaboratively developed with residents for monitoring air quality, we then describe the data stories that we created along with citizens as a method and technique for composing data. We further mobilise the concept of 'just good enough data' to discuss the ways in which citizen data gives rise to alternative ways of creating, valuing and interpreting datasets. We specifically consider how environmental data raises different concerns and possibilities in relation to Big Data, which can be distinct from security or social media studies. We then suggest ways in which citizen datasets could generate different practices and interpretive insights that go beyond the usual uses of environmental data for regulation, compliance and modelling to generate expanded data citizenships.

Trust in Data Science

“…For instance, data scientists work to explicate algorithmic approaches to business analysts, and business teams strive to explain business knowledge to data scientists. We see in such forms of translation work a common traitthe recourse to stories and narratives to not only explain algorithmic results [30,98], but also describe suspect data and model attributes. Narrativization serves various purposes ranging from delineating the abnormal from the ordinary (e.g., what is and isn't noisy data) to rendering opaque technicalities natural and commonplace (e.g., models are inscrutable, but so are human brains).…”

Metadata accounts: Achieving data and evidence in scientific research

“…In Busch's account, however, these metadata issues are submerged beneath the focus on data construction and analysis. Similar examples can be found in Levin (2014) and Gabrys et al (2016). Levin's analysis depicts the kinds of work needed to translate between clinical and laboratory evidence in the biomedical field.…”

Practicing environmental data justice: From DataRescue to Data Together

“…Seeking to counter these harms, critical data studies and critical GIS scholars advocate for “counter‐data” and “counter‐mapping” tactics as part of “imagining radical politics with and against data” (Burns et al., , p. 2). They charge designers to become aware of the historical contexts they operate within (Fortun et al., ) and design reflexively in order to advance EJ (Gabrys et al., ; Moore et al., ). Researchers have developed feminist and qualitative approaches to traditionally positivist uses of GIS (D'Ignazio & Klein, ; Kwan & Knigge, ) and engaged in collaborative mapping with communities (Elwood, ; Wilson, ).…”