Data as Collective Action: Lessons From Co-Design and Facilitation Sessions of Campaign Zero's Safe Cities Tool

• In Event: Bridging the Gaps: Foregrounding Activism in the Field

Abstract

The conflation of police and prisons with safety has failed to reduce violence and instead perpetuates cyclical responses that surveil and target marginalized communities. That data figures so prominently in the construction of this carceral vision of safety is no accident. As J. Khadijah Abdurahman reminds us, “data… are not facts, they are just reflections of the data collector’s view of the world and the infrastructure available to them.” Considering this, we employ Campaign Zero’s Safe Cities platform to explore the extent and nature of how community organizers utilize data, and how data on the platform can be leveraged, by those whose worldview challenges the status quo, to advocate for changes that promote healthy, stable neighborhoods and communities.

Through a participatory, co-design process and facilitation sessions we ask community organizers the data they require to advocate for the changes necessary to bring forth their community’s visions of safety and work with them to build their capacity to navigate the platform and draw insights from data. The findings of this research have major implications for our understanding of how data can be utilized by local organizers for the abolition of structures, policies and narratives that contribute to conditions of unsafety.

Authors

• Abdul Nasser Rad, Campaign Zero

• Andrew D. Zaharia, Campaign Zero

• Mercy Loyo, Campaign Zero