Rob Kitchin
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529215144
- eISBN:
- 9781529215168
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529215144.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven ...
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How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, the book demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. The book begins with an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. The book reveals the many, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world. The book concludes with an exploration as to what kind of data future we want to create and strategies for realizing our visions. It highlights the need to enact 'a digital ethics of care', and to claim and assert 'data sovereignty'. Ultimately, the book reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.Less
How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, the book demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. The book begins with an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. The book reveals the many, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world. The book concludes with an exploration as to what kind of data future we want to create and strategies for realizing our visions. It highlights the need to enact 'a digital ethics of care', and to claim and assert 'data sovereignty'. Ultimately, the book reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.
Rob Kitchin
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529215144
- eISBN:
- 9781529215168
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529215144.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter provides an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are not simply technical systems, but are socio-technical systems. That is, they are as much a result of human ...
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This chapter provides an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are not simply technical systems, but are socio-technical systems. That is, they are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The sociality of data is also evident with respect to how we have come to live with data. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. This book reveals the myriad, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world.Less
This chapter provides an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are not simply technical systems, but are socio-technical systems. That is, they are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The sociality of data is also evident with respect to how we have come to live with data. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. This book reveals the myriad, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world.
John Rand and Finn Tarp (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198851189
- eISBN:
- 9780191885921
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198851189.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, South and East Asia, Development, Growth, and Environmental
This volume provides a comprehensive analytic contribution to a crucial topic within development economics based on 15 years of continued data collection and research efforts. It brings together nine ...
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This volume provides a comprehensive analytic contribution to a crucial topic within development economics based on 15 years of continued data collection and research efforts. It brings together nine up-to-date studies on SME development in a coherent framework to help persuade national and international policy makers (including donors) of the need to take the international call for a data revolution seriously, not only in rhetoric, but also in concrete plans and budget allocations, and in the necessary sustained action at country level. More specifically, the volume: Provides an in-depth evaluation of the development of private sector formal and informal manufacturing SMEs in a developing country—Vietnam in this case—over the past decade, combining a unique primary source of panel data with the best analytical tools available. Generates a comprehensive understanding of the impact of business risks, credit access, and institutional characteristics, on the one hand, and government policies on SME growth performance at the enterprise level, on the other, including the importance of working conditions, informality, and union membership. Serves as a lens through which other countries, and the international development community at large, may wish to approach the massive task of pursuing a meaningful data revolution as an integral element of the SDG development agenda. Makes available a comprehensive set of materials and studies of use to academics, students, and development practitioners interested in an integrated approach to the study of economic growth, private sector development, and the microeconomic analysis of SME development in a fascinating developing country.Less
This volume provides a comprehensive analytic contribution to a crucial topic within development economics based on 15 years of continued data collection and research efforts. It brings together nine up-to-date studies on SME development in a coherent framework to help persuade national and international policy makers (including donors) of the need to take the international call for a data revolution seriously, not only in rhetoric, but also in concrete plans and budget allocations, and in the necessary sustained action at country level. More specifically, the volume: Provides an in-depth evaluation of the development of private sector formal and informal manufacturing SMEs in a developing country—Vietnam in this case—over the past decade, combining a unique primary source of panel data with the best analytical tools available. Generates a comprehensive understanding of the impact of business risks, credit access, and institutional characteristics, on the one hand, and government policies on SME growth performance at the enterprise level, on the other, including the importance of working conditions, informality, and union membership. Serves as a lens through which other countries, and the international development community at large, may wish to approach the massive task of pursuing a meaningful data revolution as an integral element of the SDG development agenda. Makes available a comprehensive set of materials and studies of use to academics, students, and development practitioners interested in an integrated approach to the study of economic growth, private sector development, and the microeconomic analysis of SME development in a fascinating developing country.
Sabina Leonelli
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226416335
- eISBN:
- 9780226416502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226416502.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Summary of the argument, background, methods and approach as "philosophy of science in practice". The introduction articulates what is revolutionary and novel about the current turn to "data-centric ...
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Summary of the argument, background, methods and approach as "philosophy of science in practice". The introduction articulates what is revolutionary and novel about the current turn to "data-centric science", and why it is important to develop an epistemological analysis of data-centric science.Less
Summary of the argument, background, methods and approach as "philosophy of science in practice". The introduction articulates what is revolutionary and novel about the current turn to "data-centric science", and why it is important to develop an epistemological analysis of data-centric science.
Lawrence Goldman
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- February 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192847744
- eISBN:
- 9780191943003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192847744.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, British and Irish Modern History
The conclusion examines several conceptual issues. Far from dispensing with the need for a God and hastening the decline of faith, for many Victorian statisticians the patterns discoverable in the ...
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The conclusion examines several conceptual issues. Far from dispensing with the need for a God and hastening the decline of faith, for many Victorian statisticians the patterns discoverable in the data were evidence of design in nature, confirming a theological view of the world. Against the arguments of Michel Foucault, and with the example of artisans from the 1820s and 1880s in mind, it is contended that statistics were used to liberate and emancipate social groups as well as to constrain and control them. Against a binary view of numbers as either ‘phenomenal descriptors’ or intrinsically ideological, it is argued that we must approach their use with sensitivity to each historical statistical project and appreciate the different ways they were collected and deployed. Continuities in the history of statistics are emphasized. The ‘data revolution’ today is one of a number of such changes in the nature of information since the late-seventeenth century. In 1822 Babbage saw that the importance of numbers to science, and the scale of calculation required for their analysis, necessitated mechanical computation. Two centuries later, the era of Big Data, based on electronic technology, makes it possible to store and process information at such scale. Babbage projected a research project to collect all the numerical ‘constants of nature and art’, key data and indicators across the natural and social worlds. Today this is realizable, bringing us closer to the original intentions and methods of the founders of the Victorian statistical movement than we may realize.Less
The conclusion examines several conceptual issues. Far from dispensing with the need for a God and hastening the decline of faith, for many Victorian statisticians the patterns discoverable in the data were evidence of design in nature, confirming a theological view of the world. Against the arguments of Michel Foucault, and with the example of artisans from the 1820s and 1880s in mind, it is contended that statistics were used to liberate and emancipate social groups as well as to constrain and control them. Against a binary view of numbers as either ‘phenomenal descriptors’ or intrinsically ideological, it is argued that we must approach their use with sensitivity to each historical statistical project and appreciate the different ways they were collected and deployed. Continuities in the history of statistics are emphasized. The ‘data revolution’ today is one of a number of such changes in the nature of information since the late-seventeenth century. In 1822 Babbage saw that the importance of numbers to science, and the scale of calculation required for their analysis, necessitated mechanical computation. Two centuries later, the era of Big Data, based on electronic technology, makes it possible to store and process information at such scale. Babbage projected a research project to collect all the numerical ‘constants of nature and art’, key data and indicators across the natural and social worlds. Today this is realizable, bringing us closer to the original intentions and methods of the founders of the Victorian statistical movement than we may realize.
