Abstract

Contemporary forms of data activism promise community organizers the means to pursue political action, but they simultaneously threaten to responsibilize individuals and communities for documenting collective harms that are already known to the state. In this article, we use Mouffe’s articulation of agonistic pluralism to analyze recent literature on data activism in terms of this double bind, the threat that authentic community voice might be muted when data is used for activist purposes. We argue that community organizers navigate this double bind through agonistic data practices, tactics which draw on the affective and narrative potentialities of data to dispute the terms by which majoritarian political agents rationalize their actions and direct policy. Agonistic data practices do not presume that data will lead to more equitable consensus in representative government or to a more rational debate in the public sphere; instead, agonistic data practices mobilize the antagonisms that motivate people to act, to imagine alternative political arrangements, and to contribute to long-term collective action. We conclude by mapping out a research agenda that focuses on agonistic data practices enacted in minoritized communities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

摘要

当代形式的数据激进主义为社区组织者提供了采取政治行动的手段，但同时也威胁到个人和社区对记录国家已知的集体危害的责任。在本文中，我们使用 Mouffe 对对抗多元主义的阐述，根据这种双重约束来分析最近关于数据激进主义的文献，即当数据用于激进主义目的时，真实的社区声音可能会被静音的威胁。我们认为社区组织者通过对抗性数据实践来驾驭这种双重束缚，利用数据的情感和叙事潜力来质疑多数派政治代理人使他们的行为和指导政策合理化的条款的策略。竞争性数据实践并不假定数据会导致代议制政府中更公平的共识或公共领域中更理性的辩论；取而代之的是，对抗性的数据实践调动了激励人们采取行动、想象替代政治安排并为长期集体行动做出贡献的对抗性。最后，我们制定了一项研究议程，该议程侧重于洛杉矶大都市区少数族裔社区制定的对抗性数据实践。