DATA as Relation

ETHOS Lab is proud to present the research project “Data as Relation: Governance in the age of big data”, granted full funding by VELUX FONDEN. The project was launched in January 2017 and features four PhD projects, one Post Doctoral research project and a series of public interventions, to be made manifest through ETHOS Lab.

Data as Relation explores how big data is generated, negotiated and used in governance. The hypothesis of the project is that the use of big data and digitalization in the public sector and governance is not a mere technical upgrade of infrastructures, but implies a reinvention of society itself. The goal of the project is to study how innovative new data usage for decision making make new relations emerge between government, private companies, and citizens.

To pursue this hypothesis the project’s five case studies collaborate with producers and users of data in international, national, regional and municipal contexts. In Denmark SKAT (the Danish tax authorities) and Hitachi are involved as partners. To ensure that the outcome of the research is communicated to and engaged with by the public, the ETHOS Lab is included in the project as a trading ground through which interventions and other public events with citizens, international scholars and practitioners will be hosted.

Theoretically, Data as Relation will contribute to the anthropology of data, economic anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, design and organization studies. The project team includes Professor Mark Elam, Assistant Professor Marisa Cohn, Assistant Professor Rachel Douglas-Jones, Associate Professor Christopher Gad, Associate Professor Morten Hjelholt, Assistant Professor Christina Neumayer, Associate Professor Luca Rossi, Associate Professor Laura Watts and will be led by Pricipal Investigator, Associate Professor Brit Ross Winthereik. Read more on the official website https://dar.itu.dk/

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VELUX FONDEN is a non-profit foundation that supports scientific, cultural, social and environmental purposes to foster a knowledge-based, enlightened, spacious, inclusive and sustainable society