| Title | Metadata, Digital Infrastructure, and the Data Ideologies of Cultural Anthropology |
| Publication Type | Book Chapter |
| Year of Publication | 2020 |
| Authors | Poirier, Lindsay, Kim Fortun, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, Mike Fortun, Jerome W. Crowder, Mike Fortun, Rachel Besara, and Lindsay Poirier |
| Pagination | 209-237 |
| Publisher | Springer International Publishing |
| City | Cham |
| ISBN Number | 978-3-030-24925-0 |
| Abstract | In this chapter, based on fieldwork with the Research Data Alliance and our work designing the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE), we elaborate on the concept of data ideologies and examine how they have informed work and data-sharing practice in academic research, and in cultural anthropology more specifically. Data ideologies refer to people’s underlying assumptions about data, the way they operate, and the consequences they produce. We argue that, while many cultural anthropologists have been reticent to share their data, making anthropological data more open and accessible affords new possibilities for multi-perspectival analysis and re-interpretation of data—practices that can make ethnographic narratives more robust and pluralistic. Metadata is key to encouraging re-interpretation of archived data, as it situates data collection and analysis in a particular time, setting, and cultural context. We demonstrate how we implemented data-sharing infrastructure and metadata standards in PECE—not to advance reproducible research practices, but instead to encourage collaborative hermeneutics and iterative re-analysis of data. We conclude that attending to complex contemporary problems will demand linking undervalued and underfunded infrastructural work to the cultural work of shifting the discipline’s data ideologies. |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24925-0_10 |
Zotero attachments as links:
