The Nature of Data: Infrastructures, Environments, Politics

The Nature of Data explores how data technologies are revolutionizing environmental politics, bringing together scholars from geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and ecology to address the contested practices of making and maintaining data infrastructure, the imaginaries produced by data infrastructures, the relations between state and civil society, and the conditions under which technology can further socio-ecological justice.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 344 pages
Publication date: 01 October 2022
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Environmental politics is facing several pressing issues today, and data technologies are playing a significant role in addressing these challenges. Big data, artificial intelligence, and data dashboards promise revolutionary advances in the speed and scale at which governments, corporations, conservationists, and individuals can respond to environmental challenges. The Nature of Data explores how the digital realm is a significant site in which environmental politics are waged, bringing together scholars from geography, anthropology, science and technology studies, and ecology. The collection argues that we cannot fully understand the current conjuncture in critical, global environmental politics without understanding the role of data platforms, devices, standards, and institutions. It addresses the contested practices of making and maintaining data infrastructure, the imaginaries produced by data infrastructures, the relations between state and civil society that data infrastructure reworks, and the conditions under which technology can further socio-ecological justice instead of re-entrenching state and capitalist power. This innovative volume presents some of the first research in this new but rapidly growing subfield that addresses the role of data infrastructures in critical environmental politics.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781496232502