Between Data Discourses and Liberatory Imaginaries

Keywords: data bias, hauntings, liberatory futures, Black geographies
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper, following Hoffmann’s (2019) use of critical race theory as a framework for analyzing limits of data bias discourse, explores the significance of applying critical Black scholarship to discourses on data and related digital technologies. Influenced by McKittrick’s (2021) scholarly work on social algorithms reinforcing black nonbeing, I argue that applying theorizations of time and futures from critical Black scholarship onto discourses of data technologies reveals dissonances that can deny possibilities of black livingness. Further, bringing these dissonances into already present critical discussions on racism and digital technologies enables a richer discussion on ethical data practices that contextualizes architectures and schema of data technologies within a broader framework of structural social-political-economic racism. This paper ultimately asks what, ontologically, is implicitly believed about racialized bodies or their representations through data via data structures, and how do these data structures limit what can be determined, narrated, and understood about black livingness.