[Air-L] Call for Papers | Special Issue on "Care-ful Data Studies"

[Zakharova, Irina]

Hello everyone,



Please find below our call for papers for the special issue "Care-ful Data Studies" with Information, Communication and Society: https://bit.ly/Care-ful_Data_Studies

It may be relevant for academics interested in critical data studies and ethics of care in diverse fields. With our Special Issue, we encourage authors to explore whether and how shifting from critique to care as a central concept for the developing field of data studies opens new pathways for more generative engagements with the transforming roles, relations, practices, and politics of data-driven automation.

For questions and to submit your 500-word abstracts, please contact Irina Zakharova (irzakhar at uni-bremen.de<mailto:irzakhar at uni-bremen.de>)

**********CfP************

Critical data studies is a growing interdisciplinary research field concerned with the relations between digital data and society. It has developed as a response to the data-utopian views on society which gained traction with the technological advancement of algorithmic and automated systems used for processing Big Data. This critical response was initiated amongst others by boyd and Crawford (2012) who formulated critical questions to the imaginaries of big data envisioning new possibilities for datafied knowledge production based on data's interconnectivity and portability. Central to data studies is its critique of technological determinism and 'data-intensive and positivistic' approaches to datafied societies enacted through narratives of big tech corporations. At the same time, scholars also identify a need for more generative and care-ful perspectives that counterbalance and/or challenge the data-utopian narratives and envisaged "big futures" (Michael 2017) of big tech corporations and policy makers. In particular, concepts of care have been used to critically examine data science and the increasingly important role of digital data in a variety of social domains. This turn towards care-ful perspectives in data studies follows a general trend of care-ful engagements with technology (design), where scholars propose alternative strategies such as community-led design and organisation, survival, repair, or refusal.

In this Special Issue we want to explore these engagements with concepts and theories around 'ethics of care' further. In doing so, we shift our attention from the implications of data-driven automation for societies as 'matters of concern' (Latour 2004) to one that understands processes of datafication as 'matters of care' (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017). In this approach, care can be understood as both an ethico-political obligation (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017; Tronto 1993; 2016) and a practice of local tinkering (Mol 2008) required to create and maintain better futures. This 'double vision of care' (Lindén and Lydahl 2021) bridges normative perspectives on care, often critiqued as distanced from experience, and the local, partial practices of caring.

The Special Issue invites scholars to submit empirical and conceptual contributions covering, but not limited to, various social domains from education, health care, ageing, to the public sector and welfare state. These domains are not only those where care is a necessary part of upholding (social) relations, but are also characterised by expectations of good care, while this care is increasingly required to meet certain datafied criteria. We especially invite submissions from or work engaging with scholars and activists of Black feminism, of the 'Global South' and Asia, and Indigenous scholars. Aware of different perspectives on data universalism, advocating plurality (Milan and Treré 2019) or making non-Western values more universal (Hoffmann 2021), this Special Issue aims to bring together contributions situated locally and not aiming to make universal claims. We invite care-ful engagements with, about and in data studies, addressing one or more of the following questions:

What can we learn by examining data politics and practices as care-less or care-ful?
How do practices of data care evolve through and in opposition to human-centred care practices and responsibilities?
How can data management and governance be designed to incorporate collective practices of caring?
What 'dark sides of care' (Martin, Myers, and Viseu 2015) are obscured when care is presented as an individual obligation and practice?
What (un)caring transgressions may we observe across care and technology sectors?
How may a 'double vision of care' (Lindén and Lydahl 2021) allow us to attend to care in data studies differently and more generatively?

**********Timeline************
28 February 2023 - Deadline for 500-word abstracts
10 March 2023 - Authors notified and invited to write full manuscript
15 July 2023 - Deadline for full manuscripts
15 September 2023 - Deadline for reviewer feedback
30 November 2023 - Deadline for final submissions of revised articles

**********Guest Editors************
Irina Zakharova (University of Bremen, ZeMKI) & Juliane Jarke (University of Graz)

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Dr. Irina Zakharova (she/her)
Postdoctoral researcher

University of Bremen<https://agim.uni-bremen.de/en/team/zakharova-en/>, ZeMKI<https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/zemki/about-zemki/members/members/member-profile/idm/5372?cHash=2876331a2a2a2293d74de375846cdca0> &
Institute for Information Management Bremen (ifib)<https://www.ifib.de/en/about-us/team/detail/irina-zakharova>
Am Fallturm 1 (Entrance F)
D-28359 Bremen, Germany

Twitter: @irzakhar<https://twitter.com/irzakhar> Mastodon: @irzakhr at sciences.social<https://sciences.social/@irzakhar>
Mail: irzakhar at uni-bremen.de<mailto:irzakhar at uni-bremen.de>, izakharova at ifib.de<mailto:izakharova at ifib.de>