Situating Data: Inquiries in Algorithmic Culture
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2023), 291 pp.
"Taking up the challenges of the datafication of culture, as well as of the scholarship of cultural inquiry itself, this collection contributes to the critical debate about data and algorithms. How can we understand the quality and significance of current socio-technical transformations that result from datafication and algorithmization? How can we explore the changing conditions and contours for living within such new and changing frameworks? How can, or should we, think and act within, but also in response to these conditions? This collection brings together various perspectives on the datafication and algorithmization of culture from debates and disciplines within the field of cultural inquiry, specifically (new) media studies, game studies, urban studies, screen studies, and gender and postcolonial studies. It proposes conceptual and methodological directions for exploring where, when, and how data and algorithms (re)shape cultural practices, create (in)justice, and (co)produce knowledge." (Publisher description)
Introduction: Situating Data as Cultural Inquiry / Nanna Verhoeff and Karin van Es, 13
PART 1. PRACTICES
1 Coffee Roasters’ Data Vernacular. On the Entanglement of Digital Data and Craft / Markus Stauff, Pauline van Romondt Vis, and Karin van Es, 31
2 The Agricultural Data Imaginary. Precision Farming’s Reinforcement of the Productivist Approach to Agriculture / Eggo Müller, 49
3 Controversing Datafication through Media Architectures / Corelia Baibarac Duignan, Julieta Matos Castaño, Anouk Geenen, and Michiel de Lange, 67
4 Streaming against the Environment. Digital Infrastructures, Video Compression, and the Environmental
Footprint of Video Streaming / Marek Jancovic and Judith Keilbach, 85
5 Out of the Bin, into the Open. Looking at the Mediating and Performing Material Afterlives of Data / Tamalone van den Eijnden, 103
PART 2. JUSTICE
6 Data as Boundary Objects, Datafication as Boundary Work / Koen Leurs, 123
7 The Datafication of Racialization and the Pursuit of Equality. The Case of the “Barometer Culturele Diversiteit” / Gerwin van Schie, 141
8 Caged by Data. Exposing the Politics of Facial Recognition Through Zach Blas’s Face Cages / Rosa Wevers, 159
9 Dirty Computers versus the New Jim Code. Janelle Monáe’s Datafied Performance / Dan Hassler-Forest, 173
PART 3. KNOWLEDGES
10 How Eva Louise Young (1861–1939) Found Me. On the Performance of Metadata in Knowledge Production / Iris van der Tuin, 189
11 Interstitial Data. Tracing Metadata in Archival Search Systems / Jasmijn Van Gorp, 207
12 Data and Algorithms in Transition. A Diachronic Affordance Analysis Perspective / Stefan Werning, 223
13 Schooled by Dashboards? Learning Platforms’ Performance-Centered Pedagogy and Its Impact on Teaching / Niels Kerssens, 241
PART 4. AGENDAS
14 Creative Urban Methods for the Datafied City / Nanna Verhoeff, Sigrid Merx, and Michiel de Lange, 257
15 Investigating the Datafied Society. Entrepreneurial Research as Approach / Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Karin van Es, and Iris Muis, 267
16 Big Data and the Global South. A Case for Dialogue / Bruce Mutsvairo, 273
17 Situating the Marketization of Data / Anne Helmond and Fernando van der Vlist, 279
PART 1. PRACTICES
1 Coffee Roasters’ Data Vernacular. On the Entanglement of Digital Data and Craft / Markus Stauff, Pauline van Romondt Vis, and Karin van Es, 31
2 The Agricultural Data Imaginary. Precision Farming’s Reinforcement of the Productivist Approach to Agriculture / Eggo Müller, 49
3 Controversing Datafication through Media Architectures / Corelia Baibarac Duignan, Julieta Matos Castaño, Anouk Geenen, and Michiel de Lange, 67
4 Streaming against the Environment. Digital Infrastructures, Video Compression, and the Environmental
Footprint of Video Streaming / Marek Jancovic and Judith Keilbach, 85
5 Out of the Bin, into the Open. Looking at the Mediating and Performing Material Afterlives of Data / Tamalone van den Eijnden, 103
PART 2. JUSTICE
6 Data as Boundary Objects, Datafication as Boundary Work / Koen Leurs, 123
7 The Datafication of Racialization and the Pursuit of Equality. The Case of the “Barometer Culturele Diversiteit” / Gerwin van Schie, 141
8 Caged by Data. Exposing the Politics of Facial Recognition Through Zach Blas’s Face Cages / Rosa Wevers, 159
9 Dirty Computers versus the New Jim Code. Janelle Monáe’s Datafied Performance / Dan Hassler-Forest, 173
PART 3. KNOWLEDGES
10 How Eva Louise Young (1861–1939) Found Me. On the Performance of Metadata in Knowledge Production / Iris van der Tuin, 189
11 Interstitial Data. Tracing Metadata in Archival Search Systems / Jasmijn Van Gorp, 207
12 Data and Algorithms in Transition. A Diachronic Affordance Analysis Perspective / Stefan Werning, 223
13 Schooled by Dashboards? Learning Platforms’ Performance-Centered Pedagogy and Its Impact on Teaching / Niels Kerssens, 241
PART 4. AGENDAS
14 Creative Urban Methods for the Datafied City / Nanna Verhoeff, Sigrid Merx, and Michiel de Lange, 257
15 Investigating the Datafied Society. Entrepreneurial Research as Approach / Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Karin van Es, and Iris Muis, 267
16 Big Data and the Global South. A Case for Dialogue / Bruce Mutsvairo, 273
17 Situating the Marketization of Data / Anne Helmond and Fernando van der Vlist, 279
