[Air-L] Must reads on "conceptions of power of numbers/big data"

[Alex Leavitt]

I cannot recommend highly enough the work of Diana Forsythe; people are now
discovering in their own fieldwork what she had already said a decade ago:

Forsythe, D. (2002). Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the
World of Artificial Intelligence. David Hess, ed. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.

The other important source would be Lucy Suchman's work:

Suchman, L. (1994). Do categories have politics? : the language/action
perspective reconsidered. In: Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 2, 3, p.
177-190.

I've also compiled a small collection of resources and people interested in
digital ethnography. Literature is available here:
https://www.zotero.org/groups/digitalethnography

---

Alexander Leavitt
PhD Candidate
USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
http://alexleavitt.com
Twitter: @alexleavitt <http://twitter.com/alexleavitt>


On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 1:18 PM, Daniel Kunzelmann <
kunzelmann.daniel at yahoo.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Again, eager to start yet another list of literature :)
>
> ...the issue at stake this time: ethnographic and/or anthropological work
> on the power of numbers (with a specific focus on big data)!
>
> Anyone wants to share their must-read with me? I'm teaching another
> undergraduate course this upcoming semester in the field of digital
> anthropology. The seminars title: "On the power of numbers: How databases
> and quantification now do (their) work in everyday life (and how they have
> always done so?). The title is a bit cryptic, but the idea is that I do
> want to explore today's phenomenon of big data by contrasting it with other
> forms/ways of quantification(s) (e.g. statistics, etc.) that have already
> had an influence on our lifes for much longer time than today's databases,
> social network sites or algorithms.
>
> Or to put it differently: to understand big data I want to look on how
> numbers have been unfolding their power in different times of history.
>
> Using theoretical texts, I want my students to acquire knowledge on the
> key concepts of "big data" "databases", "numbers" and "quantifications".
> How can we think these phenomena today? How can we relate them to power?
> How to they rule and govern our lifes, but also how are they challenged and
> reworked? And, lasts but not least, how can we apply such concepts in order
> to better understand todays digital developments in many spheres of
> (everday) life (from health to sharing economy to body conceptions, etc.)?
>
> My idea would be to teach two types of concepts:
>
> a.) "new" Cultural and Social Anthropological concepts and theories that
> explicitly talk about and refer to digital phenomena as in "big data",
> "databases", "algorithms", etc.
>
> b.) "classical" ones that do NOT explicitly talk about these issues, but
> that you would consider highly applicable to understand such phenomena
> (e.g. work on statistics, quantifications, numbers, etc.).
>
> I'd be very happy if you, once again, shared your knowledge and insights
> with me and my students. You may either do this by answering to this post
> or directly typing in your suggestions here:
>
> https://danielderkunzelmann.piratenpad.de/airl-power-of-numbers-big-data
>
> Either way, I will again share the list with the community afterwards :)
>
> kind regards,
> Daniel
>
> P.S.: Since this is a reading list for students, It would be awesome if
> you could maybe also name a chapter or pages if you suggest a classic work
> (e.g. what of Foucault would you suggest if you think the concept of
> "governmentality" would help...)
>
> Daniel Kunzelmann,
> Ph.D.c / Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich / Institute of Cultural
> Anthropology/European Ethnology
> twitter        @der_kunzelmann
> blog            http://transformations-blog.com/daniel-kunzelmann/
> web            http://unibas.academia.edu/DanielKunzelmann
> linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-kunzelmann/7b/426/9a5
>
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