{"title":"The unhomed data subject: negotiating datafication in Latin America","authors":"Esteban Morales, K. Reilly","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2023.2250436","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Critical scholarship about datafication reveals the implications of algorithmically driven digital transformations for both social processes and human experiences of subjectivity. Digital transformations embed ontological beliefs in the information systems that drive new organizational processes and are accompanied by techno-positivist discourses that promote the benefits of these schemes. The dual power of new information systems plus strong discursive influences has led to fears that data subjects will come to be defined by data and information systems – that their subjectivity will be subordinated by the algorithm. However, in this paper, we argue that real experiences of data sharing offer a means to reveal actual experiences with subjectification, and that often these experiences are multiple and complex. Drawing on the results of five digital literacy interventions carried out by partner organizations in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay in 2021, we consider participants’ lived experiences with datafication. Our work reveals how people experience, negotiate, reject, and accept data power’s multiple manifestations in ways that strategically mobilize data resources, constituting a fractured data subjectivity that overlaps the bounds of any one information system. This leads us to suggest the idea of the ‘unhomed’ as a useful concept for understanding data subjectification in the contemporary moment.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"38 1","pages":"2457 - 2471"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Communication & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2250436","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Critical scholarship about datafication reveals the implications of algorithmically driven digital transformations for both social processes and human experiences of subjectivity. Digital transformations embed ontological beliefs in the information systems that drive new organizational processes and are accompanied by techno-positivist discourses that promote the benefits of these schemes. The dual power of new information systems plus strong discursive influences has led to fears that data subjects will come to be defined by data and information systems – that their subjectivity will be subordinated by the algorithm. However, in this paper, we argue that real experiences of data sharing offer a means to reveal actual experiences with subjectification, and that often these experiences are multiple and complex. Drawing on the results of five digital literacy interventions carried out by partner organizations in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay in 2021, we consider participants’ lived experiences with datafication. Our work reveals how people experience, negotiate, reject, and accept data power’s multiple manifestations in ways that strategically mobilize data resources, constituting a fractured data subjectivity that overlaps the bounds of any one information system. This leads us to suggest the idea of the ‘unhomed’ as a useful concept for understanding data subjectification in the contemporary moment.
期刊介绍:
Drawing together the most current work upon the social, economic, and cultural impact of the emerging properties of the new information and communications technologies, this journal positions itself at the centre of contemporary debates about the information age. Information, Communication & Society (iCS) transcends cultural and geographical boundaries as it explores a diverse range of issues relating to the development and application of information and communications technologies (ICTs), asking such questions as: -What are the new and evolving forms of social software? What direction will these forms take? -ICTs facilitating globalization and how might this affect conceptions of local identity, ethnic differences, and regional sub-cultures? -Are ICTs leading to an age of electronic surveillance and social control? What are the implications for policing criminal activity, citizen privacy and public expression? -How are ICTs affecting daily life and social structures such as the family, work and organization, commerce and business, education, health care, and leisure activities? -To what extent do the virtual worlds constructed using ICTs impact on the construction of objects, spaces, and entities in the material world? iCS analyses such questions from a global, interdisciplinary perspective in contributions of the very highest quality from scholars and practitioners in the social sciences, gender and cultural studies, communication and media studies, as well as in the information and computer sciences.