Nobody talks about this: (Big) data by citizens for citizens
It amazes me every time. In spite of what we know about how big data are employed to spy on us, manipulate us, lie to us and control us, there are still people who get super excited by hype-generating narratives around social media, machine learning and business insights. But at the same time, I am a bit tired of the apocalyptic talk of some social scientists that seem to preach that we become digital anchorites in small, secluded and secret cyber-cloisters.
Don’t get me wrong; I am a big fan of encryption and virtual private networks. And yes, the CEOs of the technology corporations have more resources than governments to understand social and individual realities. The consequence of this unevenness is evident because companies do not share their information unless forced or in exchange for something else. Thus, public representatives and citizens lose their capacity for action vis-à-vis private powers.
But precisely because of the severe imbalances and practices of dataveillance–as Jose van Dijck has called massive surveillance — it is vital to consider alternative forms of data that enable the less powerful to act with agency in the era of the so-called “data power”. While the debate on big data is polarised and hijacked by techno-utopians and techno-pessimists, little is being said about what ordinary people and non-governmental organisations do with data; namely, how data are created, amassed and used by alternative actors to come up with diagnoses and solutions.
While big data progress stories come mostly from the private sector, people and organised society are using the data infrastructure as a critical instrument in their quests. These people include fellow action-oriented researchers and number-churning practitioners generating new maps, platforms and alliances for a better world. And they are showing a high degree of ingenuity, against the odds.
What data activists do…
Most of the thirty activists, practitioners and researchers I interviewed and forty plus organisations I reviewed in my recent book Data Activism and Social Change practice data activism in one way or another. Organisations, such as DataKind, transfer skills by deploying data scientists into non-governmental organisations so they can work together on projects. Others, for example, Medialab-Prado and Civio, create platforms and tools or generate the matchmaking opportunities for actors to meet and collaborate in data projects with social goals. Donors, such as the Open Knowldege Foundation among others, fund some of these endeavours. And data journalists, including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, provide analysis that supports campaigns and advocacy efforts.
Proper data activtists take it further, securing in sheltered archives vital information and evidence of human rights abuses (i.e. The Syrian Archive); recreating stories of human suffering and abuse (i.e. Forensic Architexture’s “Liquid Traces”); tracking illegal fishing and linking it to development issues (i.e. “Western Africa’s Missing Fish”, co-led by me at the Overseas Development Institute); visualising evictions and mobilising crowds to stop them (i.e. in San Francisco and Spain); and mapping citizen data to produce verified and actionable information during humanitarian crises and emergencies (i.e. the “Ayuda Ecuador” application of the Ushahidi platform), to mention just a few.
We know datasets and algorithms do not speak for themselves and are not neutral. Data cannot be raw, as Nancy Gitelman so rightly said; they are “made” in processes that are “made” as well, says Tom Boellstorff. That is, data are not to be treated as natural resources, inevitable and spontaneous, but as cultural resources that to be curated and stored. And the fact that the data infrastructure is employed in good causes does not abolish the prejudices and asymmetries present in datasets, algorithms, hardware and data processes. But the exciting thing is that even using flawed technology, these activists gets results.
But where do these activists get data from? Because data can be difficult to find.
How do activists get their hands on data?
Corporations do not usually give their data away, and the level of government openness is not fantastic. “Data is hard (or even impossible) to find online, 2) data is often not readily usable, 3) open licensing is rare practice and jeopardised by a lack of standards”, concludes the latest Global Open Data Index report. This lack of open access to public data is shocking when considering this is mostly information about how governments administer everyone’s resources and taxes.
So when governments and corporations do not open their data vaults, people get organised and generate their own data. This is the case of “Rede InfoAmazonia”, a project that maps water quality and quantity based on a network of sensors deployed by communities of the Brasilian Amazon. The map issues alarms to the community when water levels or quality surpass or fall behind a range of standard indicators.
Data activists resort to public data that can be acquired (i.e. automatic identification system signals captured by satellites from vessels), generate communities so they can crowdsource citizen data, and deploy drones and sensors to gather images.
The crowdsourced map set up using the Ushahidi platform in Haiti in 2010 tackled “key information gaps” in the early period of the response before large organisations were operative, providing geolocalised data to small non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that did not have a field presence, offering situational awareness and rapid information with high degree of accuracy, and enabling citizens’ decision-making, found an independent evaluation of the deployment.
Forensic Architecture’s “Liquid Traces” employs AIS signals, heat signatures of the ships, radar signals and other surveillance technologies to demonstrate that the failure to save a group of 72 people who had been forced by armed Libyan soldiers on-board of an inflatable craft on March 27, 2011, was due to callousness, not the inability to locate them. Only nine would survive.
Another organisation, WeRobotics, helps communities in Nepal to analyse and map vulnerability to landslides in a changing climate.
Alliances, maps and hybridisation
From the observation of how these organisations work, I identified eleven traits that define data activist organisations. One interesting commonality is that data activists tend to work in alliances. This sounds quite commonsensical. Either the problems these activists are trying to analyse and solve are too big to tackle on their own (i.e. from a humanitarian crisis to climate change), or the datasets that they confront are too big (i.e. “Western Africa’s Missing Fish” and the ICIJ’s “Panama papers” processed terabytes of data). I cannot think of any data project that does not include some form of collaboration.
Another universal quality is that data activists often rely on maps as tools for analysis, coordination and mobilisation. Maps are objects bestowed with knowledge, power and influence. The rise of digital cartography, mobile media, data crowdsourcing platforms and geographic information systems reinforces the maps’ muscle. This trend overlaps with a growing interest in crisis and activist mapping, a practice that blends the capabilities of the geoweb with humanitarian assistance and campaigning. In the hands of people and organisations, maps have been a form of political counter-power. One example is Ushahidi’s first map (see map), which was set up in 2008 to bypass an information shutdown during the bloodbath that arose after the presidential elections in Kenya a year earlier, and to give voice to the anonymous victims. The deployment allowed victims to disseminate alternative narratives about the post-electoral violence.
The employment of maps is so usual in data activism that I have called this variety of data activism geoactivism –defined precisely by the way activists use digital cartography and often crowdsourced data to provide alternative narratives and spaces for communication and action. InfoAmazonia, an organisation dedicated to environmental issues and human rights in the Amazon region, is an example of another organisation specialised in visualising geolocalised data, in this case for journalism and advocacy. I defend the idea that this use of maps almost by default has generated a change in paradigm, standardising maps for humanitarianism and activism.
Finally, data activists usually do not have any qualms about mixing methods and tools from other sectors. Not only many data organisations are hybrid –crossing the lines that separate journalism, advocacy, research and humanitarianism — , but they also combine repertoires of action. An example is “Los vagabundos de la chatarra”, a year-long project that includes comics journalism, a book, interactive maps, videos and a website to tell the stories of the people who gathered and sold scrap metal for a living on the edges of Barcelona during the economic crisis that started in 2007.
Civio, mentioned before, produces journalism, hosts data projects, advocates around issues such as transparency, corruption, health and forest fires. “España en llamas” is a project hatched at Civio that, for the first time, paints a comprehensive picture of fires in Spain.
The values that motivate these data activists include sharing knowledge, collaborating and inspiring processes of social change and justice, uncovering and providing undisputable evidence for them, and deploying collective action powered by indignation and also by hope. These data activists deserve more attention.
