Special Issue Editorial Introduction: Entangling Data while Entangling Disciplines

Abstract

This special issue discusses forms of possible collaboration and mutual intermixing between anthropology and data science, by presenting projects and creative experiments that have been conducted astray the two fields. While we may say that all scientists work with data, this special issue focuses on data that are collected and/or processed by digital means. In addition, attention will be paid to computation as anthropologists have recently turned to the study of data, AI and algorithms, offering critical insights about their production and implementation. They have addressed the effects of algorithmic automation (e.g. increasing surveillance, inequality exacerbation, new forms of discrimination) and conducted fieldwork among data scientists in order to bring the socio-cultural dimensions of their work to the forefront. In this introduction, we will illustrate what motivated this special issue and will introduce the articles by positioning them critically within the current debate about computation, big data and AI.