Data: a cosmopolitical approach

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a cosmopolitical approach to, and under­standing of, data, based on the work of Isabelle Stengers. This entails appreciating data as constituted through multiple actors and actions, and, accordingly, as something capable of producing unanticipated, surprising consequences. Cosmopolitics helps us think about data, and datafication, as actors in a more-than-human world in ways that transgress a common and widespread perception of data as either neutral, objective and representational or as socially constructed, perspectivist and endowed with human politics. The argument is thus that data and datafication change practices and can bring forth novel layers and qualities of those practices. We explore data through a cos­mopolitical approach using two empirical examples generated during 2013-2017, where the authors carried out ethnographic fieldwork in a project on governing and managing healthcare data. We conclude by proposing the term cosmo-data-politics and discuss the implications of this neologism.