The Power of Smart Solutions: Knowledge, Citizenship, and the Datafication of Bangalore’s Water Supply

Taylor, Lance; Richter, Christine

doi:10.1177/1527476417690028

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It suggests that notwithstanding an overwhelmingly positive vision of data governance in the Global South, biased towards 'empowerment' of the poor and needful (Arora, 2016), datafication contributes to shifting power equilibria with unpredicted and, in some cases, overtly negative effects on vulnerable groups (Eubanks, 2018;Taylor & Broeders, 2015). The uptake of data-based processes yields multiple consequences on economic governance, with mixed effects on subjects whose data are collected in a silent or coercive way (Mann, 2018;Taylor & Richter, 2017). Focusing on datafication of antipoverty programmes, we seek to make three main contributions to such debate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Datafying anti-poverty programmes: implications for data justice

Masiero

Das

2019

Information, Communication & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper seeks to illuminate the significance of datafication for anti-poverty programmes, meaning social protection schemes designed specifically for poor people. The conversion of beneficiary populations into machine-readable data enables two core functions of social protection, those of recognising entitled beneficiaries and assigning entitlements connected to each antipoverty scheme. Drawing on the incorporation of Aadhaar, India's biometric population database, in the national agenda for social protection, we unpack a techno-rational perspective that crafts datafication as a means to enhance the effectiveness of antipoverty schemes. Nevertheless, narratives collected in the field show multiple forms of data injustice on recipients, underpinned by Aadhaar's functionality for a shift of the social protection agenda from in-kind subsidies to cash transfers. Based on such narratives the paper introduces a politically embedded view of data, framing datafication as a transformative force that contributes to reforming existing anti-poverty schemes.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Datafying anti-poverty programmes: implications for data justice

Masiero

Das

2019

Information, Communication & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, when Bangalore datafied its water distribution system with sensors and controls on irregular use, a particular narrative reflecting sustainability and formal access became available through the digital by-products of the commercial system it installed. Conversely, a completely different alternate narrative was available from conversations with the residents of informal neighbourhoods, who experienced a correspondingly less serviceable and organised water system, and a different definition of sustainability, than the one conveyed by a 'big data' account of the system (Taylor and Richter, 2017). Each perspective, computational or ethnographic, has its own ground truth, and these ground truths are mutually inconsistent.…”

Section: Commentarymentioning

confidence: 99%

The taming of chaos: Optimal cities and the state of the art in urban systems research

Taylor

2021

Urban Studies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What can urban big data research tell us about cities? While studying cities as complex systems offers a new perspective on urban dynamics, we should dig deeper into the epistemological claims made by these studies and ask what it means to distance the urban researcher from the city. Big data research has the tendency to flatten our perspective: it shows us technology users and their interactions with digital systems but does so often at the expense of the informal and irregular aspects of city life. It also presents us with the city as optimisable system, offering up the chance to engineer it for particular forms of efficiency or productivity. Both optimisation itself, and the process of ordering of the city for optimisation, confer political and economic power and produce a hierarchy of interests. This commentary advocates that researchers connect systems research to questions of structure and power. To do this requires a critical approach to what is missing, what is implied by the choices about which data to collect and how to make them available, and an understanding of the ontologies that shape both the data sets and the urban spaces they describe.

show abstract

“…Tracing dynamics of data infrastructures situates these in their historical, socio-political contexts as scholars gather tacit knowledge about studied regions and matters over a long period of time (e.g. Taylor & Richter, 2017). Reconstructing algorithmic regimes addresses how certain categorisations of the world are inscribed in software and algorithms acknowledging the challenges of access to such information (e.g.…”

Section: Research On Data Production and Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data Inquiry: Methodological Considerations on Datafication in Social Research

Zakharova

2021

SPIR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Datafication is widely acknowledged as a process “transforming all things under the sun into a data format” (van Dijck, 2017, p. 11). As data become both objects and instruments of social science, many scholars call for attention to the ways datafication reconfigures scholarly knowledge production, its methodological opportunities, and challenges (Lomborg et al., 2020). This contribution offers a reflection on the interdependence between methodological approaches taken to study datafication and concepts about it, that these approaches provide within the domains of critical data studies and media studies. Expanding on the concept of methods' performativity (Barad, 2007), I apply the notion of methods assemblages: “a continuing process of crafting and enacting necessary boundaries [and relations]" between researchers and all relevant matters (Law, 2004: 144). The key question in the presented study is what kinds of methods assemblages are being applied in current datafication research and what concepts of datafication they produce. 32 expert interviews were conducted with scholars who published empirical work on dataficaiton between 2015 and 2020. Three methods assemblages were developed. Central to distinguishing between methods assemblages are the ways of associating of the involved actors and things. In my analysis the questions of (1) what we are talking about when talking about datafication and (2) kinds of knowledges that researchers were interested in producing can be understood as such ways of associating. The methods assemblages contribute to critical data studies by producing accounts about datafication processes that are in concert with the methods assemblages applied to study these.

show abstract

The Power of Smart Solutions: Knowledge, Citizenship, and the Datafication of Bangalore’s Water Supply

Cited by 16 publications

References 9 publications

Datafying anti-poverty programmes: implications for data justice

Datafying anti-poverty programmes: implications for data justice

The taming of chaos: Optimal cities and the state of the art in urban systems research

Data Inquiry: Methodological Considerations on Datafication in Social Research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About