A presentation for the 4S conference in Sydney, September 2018. Focus on knowledge development during he transition from an analogue to digital data environment and the epistemic risks and possibilities inherent in that process.
5. The Small Data Paradigm Seen in the Rear View Mirror
• Hacking’s 1820‐1840 avalanche of numbers ‐ when social quantification
began in earnest
• Who gets counted (or not) often equals a politics of representation ‐
• Where they get counted (crime, education, health) and where not
• How the data is analysed and used – not just reporting
• What analysis methods are applied? – underlying assumptions of same
• Resulting knowledge production paradigms are often highly morally loaded
– social sciences and the ‘deviant’ or the ‘pathological’
(Canguilhem/Foucault) for example
• Data supporting technologies of power – prison, hospital, school
13. Spatial and Epistemic Contradictions
• But quantifying beliefs is not the same thing as quantifying knowledge
• (Social) Quantification is not a neutral process – who measures and how
both matter, now under an analogue to digital transition
• Increasingly digital quantification compounds some of these risks
• Spatial quantification and representation are now the norm (satellites,
drones, computer mapping etc.) – civilian and military technologies
increasingly enmeshed ‐> Google Earth/Keyhole/CIA etc.
• Cartography is increasingly ‘map‐ematical’ (Joseph Berry), a mix of
maths and stats in combination with high technology of varying types
and scales (remote sensing, GIS, GPS, Lidar, ‘drones’ etc.)
• How do 19th century beliefs play out in the 21st century under
digitisation? – mapping was power, instruments have their own effects
16. Conclusion
• The risks of datafication are under increasing scrutiny – this is a good thing
• The epistemology of data‐informed science and social policy is getting
genuine, intensive attention – but knowledge is contested and political
• The monetisation of data and its consequences are now a part of the
discussion – who benefits and how?
• Spatial science is a pivotal locus for some of this inquiry – important
military/civilian applications and a lack of separation
• Social judgements, now informed by data/measurement/datafication are in
many cases residuals of another, analogue data environment
• The morally loaded heuristics generated by that analogue data era are alive
and well in the present (conservative ideologies)
• This is a significant issue of concern for unequal social regulation via
contemporary and emerging technologies