This week we held a Design Lab with our community campaigns, trying out some materials to help data campaigns to explore and refine their campaigning approaches. Thanks to a last minute trip to Mexico for Adam, I was able to attend and take part. I talk a lot about these kinds of campaigns in theory, and it was really informative and inspirational to get to work closely with the leaders to better understand the practice.
One of the exercises focused on “the data (life)cycle”. You’ve probably seen these in various papers and tutorials around data. To pick the first one that came up in my web search, it’s the idea that first data is generated, then collected, then processed, then stored, then managed, then analysed, then visualised, then interpreted, and then back to generated again.
These cycles are far from reflective of the way in which data actually works in the real world, where steps run alongside each other, feed back into each other, where there are multiple interlinked processes involving other datasets, and the two ends don’t actually join up.
But anyway, the exercises we went through were useful at highlighting the variety of cycles that could be in play and the multiple points at which communities could get involved in them, as well as the deficiencies in the design of some of the current data cycles the campaigns we’re working with are encountering.
When I was at ODI, I focused a lot on how data feeds into decision making. That is where the rubber hits the road – where data collection and analysis has its impact in the real world – and when you’re focused on openness, you really care about who gets to access data so they can make decisions using it.
Connected by Data was born of the observation that the people affected by those decisions might not be the same as the people about whom data is collected, but have a shared interest in ensuring the whole process works for them. They are connected to each other because of the way data is collected, used and shared. You can see how that kind of community might campaign about changing how particular steps in the data cycle are carried out, or changing the cycle itself, to create better outcomes for them.
Talking to Shannon Dosemagen at the Shuttleworth Foundation residential in October 2022 gave me another perspective. She talked to me about communities using data collection as a way to strengthen community ties and build collective purpose towards collective action. Of course the data can also be used as an evidence base in support of that action, but its primary purpose is to be a shared endeavour that forges relationships and strengthens cohesion.
I was reminded of that a lot in the session on Thursday. Several of the campaigns are creating counterdata with their communities. I think it’s important to recognise that this data is often born from trauma – online abuse, traumatic births, or more generally being ignored and unheard. The people in these communities become connected through the process of data collection and analysis: by sharing their stories, by being seen, by recognising shared grief. The process is about learning you are not alone, about receiving care and comfort and recognition. It is about being heard and validated. And it is about recognising strength and resilience, bringing resolution and joy, about building solidarity and positive action for their community.
This is making me think a lot about trauma-informed practices around data and how participatory techniques in data collection and analysis might strengthen communities as well as informing better decision making, and how to tie the two together within campaign strategies.