What do data want?

• In Event: Complicating Qualitative Data: Philosophy, Politics, and Power

Abstract

This proposal questions some qualitative researchers’ obsession with excessive data that can lead to limited analysis and sometimes unethical and meaningless consumptions of participants’ time and experiences. Rather than asking what data mean or what scholars want from data I propose that we could ask what data want, how data create themselves in their connections with other data, and what kinds of claims data can make upon us. 25 articles were systematically selected and reviewed to study and exemplify researchers’ uses of data. To conclude different repertories of tactics are needed to keep data and analysis intellectually challenging and practically meaningful. Keeping open data and analysis can promote responsive scholarship and ongoing analytical adaptations and innovations.

Author

• Mirka E. Koro-Ljungberg, University of Florida