Data (Dis)trust In The Global South: The Case Of Covid-19 – I

Abstract

What kinds of data have we produced at the local, national or transnational scale to deal and respond to Covid-19? Over the past year we have grown accustomed to measure, quantify, report, visualize, and account for all aspects of our lives. This has also come with a growing need for “valid” data and what it means to produce, share, circulate, and trust it. The assumption that data, especially more data, will lead to societal betterment is one that tends to pervade both academic conversations in data studies and public discourse. We do not argue against the importance of generating data in the face of local and global problems. Rather, we seek to challenge the assumption that critical analysis of, and intervention into, data infrastructures should happen primarily at the stage of data production. In conversation with citizen science studies the panel argues that data distrust must be taken as an integral part of data infrastructures and capacities—particularly in the context of the global south. This intervention is relevant in that it seeks to destabilize a globally adopted dichotomy that pits people who reject scientific findings against other forms of knowledge. It builds on the contention that data (dis)trust is not a “cultural” attitude of the public, but rather the result of situated processes through which frustration, uncertainty, and cynicism are enacted and produced. We are interested in understanding how data distrust—particularly around health and Covid-19—is produced and mobilized within various and transnational social fields and institutional settings.

Chair

• Sofía Carpio, Kaleidos Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography

Individual Presentations

• Trustification and proxy variables in technology discourses “for good” - Garfield Benjamin, Solent University

• To Trust Or Not To Trust - Laura Herrera, ISUR - UNIVERSITY OF THE ROSARIO; Álvaro Crovo Godoy, ISUR

• The Covid-19 Paradox: Why did Advanced Nations disproportionately report more infections and deaths, and did the United States lead the way? - Richard B Duque, George Washington University

• Healthcare Experiences and the Covid-19 Vaccine - Victoria Siaumau, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; Jane L Lehr, California Polytechnic State University

Session Organizers

• Mayra Alejandra Flores, Kaleidos - Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography

• Jorge Nunez, Kaleidos - Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography