Big Data from the South: The Beginning of a Conversation We Must Have

Abstract

What would datafication look like seen… ‘upside down’? What questions would we ask? What concepts,theories, and methods would we embrace or have to devise? What do we miss if we stick to the mainstream, Western perspective(s)? This paper calls for exploring the question of 'Big Data from the South'. It acknowledges that, while many scholars of various disciplines have started to critically explore the implications of datafication across the social, cultural and political domains, much of this critical scholarship has emerged along a Western axis ideally connecting Silicon Valley, Cambridge, MA and Northern Europe. But how does datafication unfold in countries with fragile democracies, flimsy economies, and impending poverty? Is our conceptual and methodological toolbox able to capture and to understand the dark developments and the amazing creativity emerging at the periphery of the empire? Our South is not just a geographical area, it is primarily a place (and a metaphor) of resistance, subversion and creativity.