Critical scholarship has exposed how big data brings along new and opaque regimes of population management, control, and discrimination. Building on this scholarship, this pre-conference engages in a dialogue with traditions that critique the dominance of Western approaches to datafication that do not recognize the diversity of the Global South. Moving from datafication to data activism, this event will examine the diverse ways through which citizens and the organized civil society in the Global South engage in bottom-up data practices for social change as well as resistance to “dark” uses of big data that increase oppression and inequality. Read the full description here.

Preliminary Program Note: the asterisk denotes video presentations 9:30 Welcome by Emiliano and Stefania
10:00 Panel 1: Big Data from the South: Case Studies and Experiences
+ Data Activism as an Ongoing Civic Enactive Critique on Big Data and Software User/Developer Divides. Offray Luna and Carlos Barrenche (mutabiT/HackBo, Javeriana University) + #NiUnaMenos: Data Activism from the Global South. Jean-Marie Chenou. Carolina Cepeda (Universidad de los Andes/Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) + Between Data Activism and Data Sovereignty: Contesting a Civic Internet at the Periphery and the Case of Brazil's 'Marco Civil da Internet'. Guy Hoskins (University of Toronto) + Data Activists Foster Accountability for the Haze-related Health Risk in Southeast Asia. Ana Berti Suman (Tilburg University) [*] + Big Data in Law Enforcement: An examination of use sentiment analysis in social media monitoring in India. Amber Sinha and Hans Verghese Mathews (The Centre for Internet and Society) [*] 12:00 Panel 2: Critical Perspectives + Consequences of Open Data and Transparency Policies in Brasil: How the Open Data Movement is Generating Inequality and Harnessing Citizen Privacy. Cristiana de Oliveira (State University of Campinas) + Los Datos o La vida. Jabobo Nájera, Paola Ricaurte, Jesús Robles (Enjambre Ditigal/Tecnológico de Monterrey) + [Big]Data, Power and the North-in-South: The Curious Case of Australia. Angela Daly and Monique Mann (Queensland University of Technology) [*]
+ Fostering Awareness about Online Trackin in Media and Health Sectors. Towards a Cleaner Web-ecosystem. Claudio Agosti and Joana Varon (OTF/Coding Rights) 13:30 Lunch Break 14:30 Panel 3: Conceptual Work
+ Contributions to Think an "(Urban) Humanitarian Data Activism" from the South. Virginia Brussa (Universidad Nacional de Rosario) + Decolonizing Communication. Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejías (London School of Economics/State University of New York) + Technical Futures, Digital Memory and Networked Time at the Periphery. Anita Say Chan. (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) + Tropicalizing Surveillance: How Big Data Policing "Migrated" from New York to São Paulo. Claudio Altenhain (Universität Hamburg/ELTE Budapest) 16:30 Panel 4: Interrogating Methods and Epistemologies + Who Will Pay for the Wall? Twitter, Donald Trump and Mexico: a Big Data Approach. María Elena Meneses, Alejandro Martín del Campo and Hector Rueda (Tecnológico de Monterrey) + Technopolitcs and Recent Global Social Movements in Spain and Portugal: Data, Activism and Epistemologies from the South. Jesus Sabariego, José Candón Mena and David Montero (Centro de Estudos Sociais, Portugal/Universidad de Sevilla, España) + Mixed Perspectives for the Analysis of Digital Cultural Objects: A Tour Around Mexico City in Instagram. Gabriela Sued and Paola Ricaurte (Tecnológico de Monterrey)
+ How Iranian Green Movement Activists Perceive and Respond to Online Repression. Ali Honari (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) - TBC

18:00
Conclusions
Drinks

Big Data from the South: From media to mediations, from datafication to data activism