/reading_datatogether

đź“š Monthly reading group for Data Together

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Data. Together. Let's read about it

Data Together's reading group is a set of conversations on themes relevant to information and ethics. Curated reading selections are distributed once a month; we meet to discuss on video call.

This year, we are creating blog posts of

Spring - Summer 2019 Data Together Reading Group

đź“… 17:30-19:00 ET Tuesdays Data Together Calendar
🎯 Participation link (recorded): https://edgi-video-call-landing-page.herokuapp.com/https://zoom.us/j/847315566
▶️ Data Together Call Playlist

Once a month, we'll host a 1.5 hour discussion of one of our themes. Everyone should try hard to read the core reading (~30 pages), and once or twice sign up to facilitate discussion.

Our hope is that: first, we learn together!; second, through documenting discussion we can articulate Data Together principles.

Themes

Sessions

Knowledge Commons

April 9

Let’s revisit last semester’s ideas around governing the commons, but with more emphasis and focus on how knowledge, information, and digital data might be treated and governed as common pool resources.

Readings:

  1. Ostrom and Hess “A Framework for Analyzing the Knowledge Commons” (Chapter 3, pages 41-81 of Understanding Knowledge as a Commons) (http://www.wtf.tw/ref/hess_ostrom_2007.pdf)
  2. Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Hervé Le Crosnier. An Introduction to the Digital Commons: From Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance., 2012.
  3. This twitter thread from mmildenberger: https://twitter.com/mmildenberger/status/1102604887223750657
  4. Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons”

We’re hoping these readings will spur us toward frameworks for understanding how open resources beyond nature can be sustainably governed.

If you have any questions or want to dig into other works we considered, feel free to chime in on our planning github issue: datatogether#40

Civics

May 7

A major lens through which governance of communities is understood is civics and citizenship. Even our own texts talk about "a civic layer for the web." But it's not clear that we really know what we mean by that! In order to think about communities, and more compellingly, what forms of space and collective action could be built around decentralized forms of governance, let's read about civics!

Readings:

  1. Iseult Honohan, Chapter V "Common goods and public virtue" in Civic Republicanism. This is a somewhat academic text, and to some extent refers to concepts that are defined in the first (mostly historical) part of the book. Still, it's really very interesting and helpfully discusses the tension between a liberal and "republican" view of society and the rights and duties it confers. If it feels long and difficult, maybe concentrate on the sections labelled "Introduction", "The Common Good", "Is Civic Virture Oppressive?", "Specifying Civic Virtue", and "Conclusion" -- together these are about half the full chapter, and should (we hope!) be intelligible without the remaining sections.

  2. Paul Frazee Information Civics. Available at: https://infocivics.com/. This is also a somewhat philosophical text, but focused on the new possibiliies that information technology opens up for civic engagement. Hopefully we can bring (1) and (3) (if you read that optional reading) into conversation with this text.

  3. Optional Johnson, P., & Robinson, P. (2014). Civic hackathons: Innovation, procurement, or civic engagement? Review of Policy Research, 31(4), 349-357. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ropr.12074 -- Read the Intro and Conclusion, Skim the rest . This text is largely a reminder of where many of us come from, and a prompt to think about what we might want to be doing differently or better.

  4. Optional Rethinking the Civic and Citizenship These optional readings flesh out the problem of citizenship especially through an examination of the No one is Illegal anti-racist and migrant movement. We often construct our sense of "civic" around a rights-based and liberal "citizenship regime". By examining places where that construct breaks down -- especially around immigration status -- we can maybe come to grips with the ways that "citizenship" can let us down, and maybe even the limitations of "civic" as a concept.

Alternatives to Capitalist Structures

June 4

When we explore current centralized data models, many of our fears and challenges are driven by the power of capitalist incentives; the reduction of privacy, disproportionate influence by advertisers, and concentrated ownership of data by a few corporations are all seemingly justified by the capitalist imperative to deliver maximum value to shareholders.

If the levers of capitalism place it in opposition to just data practices, can we imagine an alternative? What systems are imagined or practiced outside of capitalism, what is their power, and what do they center?

Readings:

  1. Kathi Weeks (2011): The Problem with Work p5-8, 42-47, 51-57 Available at: libcom.org
  2. Hanna Hurr (2016): Silvia Federici interviewed in Mask Magazine Available at: maskmagazine.com/the-control-issue/struggle/interview-silvia-federici
  3. Cory Doctorow (2017): Walkaway (a novel) [Excerpt]. Available at: tor.com/2017/04/03/excerpts-cory-doctorow-walkaway-chapter-2/
  4. Gibson-Graham, J.K. and E. Miller (2015): "Economy as Ecological Livelihood" Available at: communityeconomies.org/publications/chapters/economy-ecological-livelihood
  5. Frase, Peter (2011): "Four Futures" Available at: jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
  6. Michael Johnson (2012): The Cooperative Principles, the Common Good, and Solidarity Available at: geo.coop/story/cooperative-principles-common-good-and-solidarity
  7. Arturo Escobar (2018): Designs for the Pluriverse intro p7-21 Available at: dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-0-8223-7105-2_601.pdf
  8. Optional All of Doctorow's novel Walkaway
  9. Optional Adrienne Maree Brown (2017): Emergent Strategy Resilience, Creating More Possibilities p77-98
  10. Optional Nora Marks Dauenhauer (1990): Haa Tuwunáagu Yis on potlatch (jsoo.éex’) p75-109

Stewardship

August 6

Topic description coming soon!

Readings:

  1. Pastor Henry Wright (2019). The Stewardship of Time
  2. Nora Marks Dauenhauer (1990). Haa Tuwunáagu Yis
    • pp. 263-267, 277-281, Elders Speak to the Future
  3. Kat Anderson (2005). Tending the wild
  4. Trevor Owens (2017). Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation
  5. Karasti, Helena & Baker, Karen & Halkola, Eija. (2006). Enriching the Notion of Data Curation in E-Science: Data Managing and Information Infrastructuring in the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 15. 321-358. 10.1007/s10606-006-9023-2
  6. Definititon of post-custodial theory of archives
  7. Hannah Alpert-Abrams, David A Bliss, Itza Carbajal (2019). Post-Custodial Archiving for the Collective Good.
  8. Nadia Eghbal. Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure

Optional:

What is Decentralization?

September TBD

Topic description coming soon!

Readings:

Coming soon! Readings should appear at least 1 month before the date of discussion.

Facilitation

Here are some guidelines about preparation in order to facilitate a session:

  • Before the session:
  • During the session:
    • Arrive on time (call should auto record as the first person enters)
    • Ensure the call is recorded (it should auto-record as the first person enters, but always make sure someone presses the record button if not)
    • Ask for someone to take notes
    • Keep time and gently wrap us up
  • After the session:

Potential Readings

We maintain a shared bibliography in the datatogether Zotero group, which includes potential readings.

Anyone can request an invite on a call or by creating a github issue in this repository with their Zotero username.

License

Data Together Reading Group Materials are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

See the LICENSE file for details.