Maiming and Mediating Data

• In Event: Media Studies Interruptions of STS - III

Abstract

This paper aims to interrupt data collection and data mediation of the colonized, specifically in relation to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. I argue for a method of data collection and mediation that not only allows the colonized to control who can access and manage their data, but also makes data and mediation themselves more heterogenous. Drawing upon Jasbir Puar's The Right to Maim (2017) and Tahu Kukutai's Indigenous Data Sovereignty (2016), I argue that the collection and mediation of data concerning Palestinians is largely dependent upon a visual register that simply records either life or death, which is easily manipulated by the Israeli state for the sake of global optics. This works to simplify or ignore slower and less visible infrastructural violence that constructs alternate forms of existence such as debilitation. Drawing upon John Durham Peters' The Marvelous Clouds (2015), I argue that by reconceptualizing "media" as providing the conditions of life ("mediating" life) rather than just providing information, we can make an analogous conceptual move surrounding "data". "Data" does not have to record the presence of life as a simple binary (life or no life), but rather can be reconceptualized to record and express multiple forms of colonial existence (such as debilitation) derived primarily from non-visual sources that are not as easily manipulated by the Israeli state (such as Palestinian experiences and affective registers within Israeli violence).

Author

• Mary Michael, UCSB