Towards an Anthropology of Data

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Data is everywhere. While 'big' data may have once seemed limited to business or high tech, ethnographers are now finding data - and its attendant values and practices - in their field sites around the world. Data has motivated a sweep of dystopian visions, signaling the invasion of privacy, political manipulation, or shadowy data doubles. Yet anthropologists have been cautious in taking data itself as an object of theoretical interest, even as the effects of data become manifest in our ethnographies. This volume presents a set of theoretically inventive pieces that engage with data across its many locations, from government databases to ecological field stations, from kitchen tables to concrete bunkers. The contributors demonstrate how thinking with data can be conceptually generative for anthropology, prompting us to reconsider our understanding of topics including bodies, persons, and the social itself. 'Data' is a notoriously slippery concept, often signaling claims to remote objectivity and universality, by putting data in its place, the pieces collected here develop conceptual tools that will prove useful for anthropologists who find 'data' in their data.