Zones of Data Translation: Understanding how social and cultural data are transformed into value

Zones of Data Translation aims at further extending technological bridges of understanding between the university, community groups and members of the public via the workshop as method. This follow-on proposal builds directly on our previous AHRC grant, Our Data Ourselves (AH/L007770/1), wherein we examined ways of understanding and reclaiming the data that young people produce on smartphone devices. More specifically, we explored the growing usage and centrality of mobiles in the lives of young people between the ages of 14 and 18 years old, questioning what data-making possibilities exist if users can either uncover and/or capture what data controllers such as Facebook monetize and share about themselves with third-parties. These initial interventions into the enclosed processes of datafication were meant as a preliminary investigation into the possibilities that arise when young people are given back the data which they are normally structurally precluded from accessing.

The challenges inherent in these uneven processes of datafication are shared both by researchers and the general public, particularly given the lack of democratic control or public awareness around the material processes that enable the capture and privatised use of our data. Because of this problematic, we see great potential in collaborating with and learning from the civically minded technology and data advocacy NGO, Tactical Tech Collective. Their mandate is to work with a broad range of publics to raise awareness about personal data, privacy and digital security. Together, we will extend our interdisciplinary methodological approach by sharing existing tools in order to co-design two new workshops.

Sharing the MobileMiner Application and original infrastructure from the Our Data Ourselves grant will further enable us to engage new publics. To accomplish this goal we have five core activities animating our objectives:
1) First, upon completion of our participation in the Glass Room in London, we will further collaborate with Tactical Tech and make available the MobileMiner application for both the future and long term impact of this original tool from the Our Data Ourselves grant.
2) Second, we will collaborate with Tactical Tech to produce two unique workshops, which will be trialled at two separate events-one with the Open Rights Group and the other at King's College London.
3) Third, to launch the workshop at King's College London, we will hold a symposium, bringing together academics and community practitioners who are practicing and theorising interdisciplinary methodological approaches to Big Data.
4) Fourth, Tactical Tech will profile one of our co-designed workshops at their 2018/19 Glass Room Event.
5) Fifth,we will produce an Impact Report that will address a general audience of NGOs in the field, drawing from the aforementioned activities and best practices.

In working with the Tactical Tech Collective, we will ask the following questions as we develop our impact:
- How is Tactical Tech already mobilising the workshop as an interdisciplinary tool to study the material environment of social big data? How can this then be harnessed by humanities researchers for greater impact and engagement?
- How can we leverage the results of 'Our Data Ourselves' to engage new audiences beyond the classroom and the academic workshop?
- How can the techno-cultural method inform the development of new collaborative spaces to facilitate innovative humanities research that can engage the general public, augmenting knowledge exchanges between experts and non-experts?

All components of our work will deliver direct impact, as detailed in the Case for Support. Noteworthy, however, is the impact that will come from working with the Tactical Tech Collective, a non-profit organization that have been working worldwide to demystify and promote technology in the context of pedagogical activism. Specifically, their work lies at the intersection of technology, activism and politics and reaches more than three million people worldwide annually through events, training, online resources and exhibitions.Their mandate is to work with a broad range of publics to raise awareness about personal data, privacy and digital security.

Through Tactical Tech and other collaborations in the project with the Open Rights Group we will engage with a range of other stakeholders who are focused on public outreach for critical capacity building around data and technology. Moreover, this will provide a unique opportunity to extend the pathways to impact that were initially engaged in the original grant by sharing the MobileMiner application with Tactical Tech. Specifically, this tool will be made available and reworked so that it may prominently feature in the two new co-designed workshops we will create.

Our collaboration with Tactical Tech will allow us to explicitly target a relatively new community for arts and humanities research to demonstrate how the workshop as method can be used to uncover processes of datafication with both academic and non-academic audiences. To gauge the potential and long term impact of these workshops they will be trialled at two separate events with different stakeholder groups. By so doing, we can better understand the feasibility of the technocultural method by testing its potential application and presenting these findings in both academic and non-academic publications. In addition, the workshop will be profiled in Tactical Tech's, Mozilla sponsored, Glass Room in a Box event, scheduled to take place in 2018/19. It is worth noting that the first iteration of this event in New York City attracted more than 10,000 community participants and and the next event scheduled in London during October 2017 is expected to be even greater.

The primary impact of the project is to provide knowledge exchange, practical experience and critical thinking about the processes of datafication via the workshop as method in relation to different audiences. We would expect all participants to end the project with:
- Cultural transformations where academic, cultural and non profit organisations are challenged to connect with new forms of knowledge in new environments. These organisations need to consider the new power structures in these environment as well as new audiences, which include spectators but also a range of diverse communities that actively transform these environments.
- A wider understanding of what a capacity to understand and negotiate the material infrastructure of the mobile environment.
- Be able to mobilise the workshop as an interdisciplinary tool to study the material environment of social big data.
- A method and digital assets from involving Tactical Tech who will contribute their knowledge and expertise in the co-creation of new workshops to build capacity among wider and more diversified audiences.
- A culture, in which arts and humanities research can engage the general public, augmenting knowledge exchanges between experts and non-experts.