Practitioner Interventions in Data Power

Abstract

Are we entering a new phase of urgency over crises in ethical data practices? Indeed, what is data work? At the time of writing, the media is filled with predictions and proposals that generative AI will be responsible for the end of the world. More mundanely, there has been concern that increasingly automated processes will replace not only unskilled labour, but skilled labour. This includes a variety of data work. This chapter reflects on the nature of data work: what does it look like in practice and how is it differentiated across various data practitioners? How might training data scientists in being more reflective of the impacts of the work of data improve future data practices? In writing about data work and data practitioners, we are aware that we are also contributing to data practices, and that our own interventions upon data power sit in tension with the interventions of our data practitioner interlocutors. By the same token, we also wonder whether the work of critical data studies is data work in itself – as an attempt to capture what is hidden, nefarious, and/or negligently injurious in current practices with the hope that data futures can be better for all.