Expanding Data Justice: A Sociomaterial Approach to Personal Data Literacies (Poster 7)

• In Event: Crossing Boundaries and Forging New Paths in Digital Literacies Research

Abstract

In the digital age, personal data generated from people’s everyday activities holds immense power, impacting civic, economic, cultural, and social life. This chapter explores personal data literacies from a critical perspective, emphasizing the need to understand data as a contextual resource influenced by socio-political contexts and related power asymmetries. Utilizing a sociomaterial approach, personal data is presented as an assemblage where individuals, affect, lived experience, data, algorithmic systems, and institutions interact dynamically. By addressing the ethical and political implications of data use by governmental and private entities, this chapter advocates for developing data literacies that empower individuals to critically engage with their data, navigate complexities of data sharing, address power asymmetries, and advocate for equitable data practices. Personal data literacies are presented not only as these practices related to building a greater awareness of data, but also as embodied, affectual, relational, and intimately connected to issues of identity and representation.

Authors

• Jennifer Kobrin, University of Tennessee

• Laurie Sheldon, University of Arizona