The Nonneutrality of Data: Understanding the Intrarelational Constitution of Data

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 53
  In Roundtable Session: Thinking Methods With/In/Against Post-Qualitative Research

Abstract

Post-Enlightenment social theory has left social science in discontented relation with its data. Conceptualizations of data have become quite riddled, and yet methods oriented toward “producing” data have somehow remained relatively unscathed by the problematics. In this paper, I lodge a materialist critique at the concept of “data” which leads to the possibility of thinking “data’ in new ways - as intra-relational material. Doing so, leads us to reject the belief in the neutrality of data. Making secondary use of a qualitative study, I reconceptualize “data” as non-neutral materiality produced intra-actively through research actions.

Author

• Barbara Dennis, Indiana University