Data Acquisition, Data Analytics, and Data Articulations

Abstract

During a recent research visit to Jakarta focused on the use of data visualizations for anti-eviction organizing, the author joined some friends and colleagues on a trip to Central Kalimantan, one of Indonesia’s provinces on the island of Borneo. Most innovative data activism takes place off the radar of Western-centered gazes but Drone Academy’s practices and discourses raise some crucial questions about the use of data science for activism the world over. Data sovereignty is about the ability to produce, make sense of, and deploy data in opposition to hegemonic narratives about the reliability and objectivity of data and the gatekeeping of knowledge production—collectively. The principles of data sovereignty that Radja articulates are not only key to building long-lasting and scalable movements, they also speak to the ongoing struggle against forces of cooption through which corporations and institutional actors appropriate the tools, discourses, and practices that social movements and some NGOs develop.